Metastable states of 2D-material-on-metal-islands structures revealed by thermal cycling

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Hauptverfasser: Ievleva, V. A., Prudkoglyad, V. A., Morgun, L. A., Kuntsevich, A. Yu.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ievleva, V. A.
Prudkoglyad, V. A.
Morgun, L. A.
Kuntsevich, A. Yu.
author_facet Ievleva, V. A.
Prudkoglyad, V. A.
Morgun, L. A.
Kuntsevich, A. Yu.
contents The integration of 2D materials with artificially textured substrates offers exceptional opportunities for engineering novel functional devices. A straightforward technological route towards such devices is a mechanical dry or wet transfer of 2D layer or heterostructure onto prepared patterned elements with subsequent van der Waals bonding. An issue of van der Waals bond stability is crucial for device operation but is almost unexplored. In our research we address it by studying transport properties of hBN/graphene heterostructures transferred onto metallic island arrays and subjected to thermal cycling. We reveal that heating from cryogenic to room temperature and cooling back leads to irreversible changes in electronic transport properties: the contact between metal and graphene degrades, and signatures of suspended graphene regions transport disappear. These changes are accompanied by slight movement of the flakes and atomic-force-microscope-detected breakdown of van der Waals bonds between the flake and substrate near the metal electrodes. Interestingly, a hot pressing allows to restore the metal-to-graphene contact. We relate the observed metastability to the thermal-expansion-driven flake delamination and argue that it is accompanied by redistribution of the interfacial water or organic residues. Our findings provide useful insights into the topic of interfacial stability in van der Waals heterostructures and establish constraints for low-temperature applications of transferred 2D devices. We also add up an additional control parameter for the experimentalists in the field of 2D materials - degree of quenched disorder.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_21614
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Metastable states of 2D-material-on-metal-islands structures revealed by thermal cycling
Ievleva, V. A.
Prudkoglyad, V. A.
Morgun, L. A.
Kuntsevich, A. Yu.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
The integration of 2D materials with artificially textured substrates offers exceptional opportunities for engineering novel functional devices. A straightforward technological route towards such devices is a mechanical dry or wet transfer of 2D layer or heterostructure onto prepared patterned elements with subsequent van der Waals bonding. An issue of van der Waals bond stability is crucial for device operation but is almost unexplored. In our research we address it by studying transport properties of hBN/graphene heterostructures transferred onto metallic island arrays and subjected to thermal cycling. We reveal that heating from cryogenic to room temperature and cooling back leads to irreversible changes in electronic transport properties: the contact between metal and graphene degrades, and signatures of suspended graphene regions transport disappear. These changes are accompanied by slight movement of the flakes and atomic-force-microscope-detected breakdown of van der Waals bonds between the flake and substrate near the metal electrodes. Interestingly, a hot pressing allows to restore the metal-to-graphene contact. We relate the observed metastability to the thermal-expansion-driven flake delamination and argue that it is accompanied by redistribution of the interfacial water or organic residues. Our findings provide useful insights into the topic of interfacial stability in van der Waals heterostructures and establish constraints for low-temperature applications of transferred 2D devices. We also add up an additional control parameter for the experimentalists in the field of 2D materials - degree of quenched disorder.
title Metastable states of 2D-material-on-metal-islands structures revealed by thermal cycling
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21614