Atom-thin materials, devices, and structural engineering

As the thickness of the material is down to 1-nm or one atomic layer (1/1000000000 of a piece of paper), many new phenomena will emergence. Landed on a big family of atom-thin materials (e.g., graphene, BN, MoS2, other dichalcogenides, and layered oxides.), our group will focus on their synthesis and structural engineering. Combined with micro-/nano-fabrication technologies, we will make a serial of functioned devices based on atom-thin materials toward the critical problems in electronics and electrocatalysis, with an interdisciplinary branch of science.

● Synthesis and structural-engineering
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We aim to synthesize monolayer, heterostructure, or wafer-scale atom-thin materials through the vapor deposition method (e.g., chemical vapor deposition-CVD or chemical vapor transport-CVT) and engineer their structures through low-temperature deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE), co-doping, phase transform, etc. For example, we have demonstrated the synthesis of high-quality few-layer MoS2, MoSe2, WS2, WSe2, and their wafer-scale films, and the structural engineering of amorphous PtSex at a single-layer limit.


Our works: Nature synthesis, 2022, 1, 245-253.

● On-chip energy devices
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We will focus on the electrochemical behaviors at a single nanomaterial via the on-chip micro-device, which helps to measure or tune the reaction interface accurately. Using the micro-/nano-fabrication technologies, this micro-device can realize that the reaction only happens at the region of interest through a micro-sizereaction window.


Our works: Nature Catalysis, 2022, 5, 212–221.

                  Nature communications, 2020, 11(1): 1-12.

                  Nature materials, 2019, 18(10): 1098-1104.

● Electronic devices
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We aim to make high-performance field-effecttransistors (FETs), photodetectors based on atom-thin semiconductor materials.For example, we found a type-II band offset on varied-thickness MoSe2 and made a remarkable diode and solar-cell array. Also, we have demonstrated a monolayer suspended photodetector that completely excludes the substrate interfaces.


Our works: Advanced Materials, 2016, 28(25): 5126-5132.

                  Nano letters, 2015, 15(8): 5089-5097.


Y.HE Research Group