van der Waals Nanochemical Reactors.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41587352.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c06176 and PMC identifier 12904075.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Synthesizing single crystals suitable for quantum electronic discoveries remains challenging for many emerging materials. We introduce van der Waals (vdW) stacks as nanochemical reactors for single-crystal synthesis and demonstrate their broad applicability in growing both elemental and compound crystals at the micrometer scale. By encapsulating atomically thin reactants that are stacked compactly with inert vdW layers, we achieve nanoconfined synthesis with the resulting crystals remaining encapsulated. As a proof of concept, we synthesized isolated single crystals of elemental tellurium and distinct types of Pd-Te compounds. Structural characterization confirms the high crystalline quality of the products. We observe the intrinsic semiconducting gap of tellurium and superconductivity in nonstoichiometric PdTe<sub>1-<i>x</i></sub> with a significantly reduced Te content. The concept of vdW nanoreactors is broadly generalizable, chip-integrable, well-suited to a wide range of processing conditions, and compatible with nanofabrication, offering a versatile pathway to expand the accessible landscape of quantum materials.