Van der Waals Integration beyond the Limits of Van der Waals Forces

Heterostructures of dissimilar materials are core building blocks of nanoscale devices. Their growth through common chemical epitaxy or physical vapor deposition often poses strict chemical and physical compatibility constraints, limiting accessible heterostructures due to potential disorder and damage. Physical stacking provides an alternative approach to hetero-integration. This has been the foundation of the growing discipline of van der Waals (vdW) integration for 2D materials and materials of varying other dimensionalities. However, vdW integration faces a fundamental limit due to vdW forces being dependent on the intrinsic materials' optical and electrical properties and thus not readily tailorable to allow direct integration of arbitrary layers. Here, we introduce the adhesive matrix transfer approach to overcome this fundamental limit to enable direct fabrication of conventionally-forbidden vdW heterostructures and single-step 2D material-to-device integration. As no solvents, high-temperatures or sacrificial layers are involved, our platform yields pristine surfaces and interfaces uniquely suited for studying the intrinsic properties of 2D materials and leveraging them in device applications which will be discussed.