A Chemical Approach to 2D-2D Heterostructures Beyond Van Der Waals: High-Throughput On-Device Covalent Connection of MoS2 and Graphene

The most widespread method for the synthesis of 2D-2D heterostructures is the direct growth of one material on top of the other. Alternatively, one can manually stack flakes of different materials. Both methods are limited to one crystal/device at a time and involve interfacing the 2D materials through van der Waals forces, to the point that all these materials are known as van der Waals heterostructures. Synthetic chemistry is the paradigm of atomic-scale control, yet its toolbox remains unexplored for the construction of 2D-2D heterostructures. Here, we describe how to covalently connect 2H-MoS₂ flakes to several single-layer graphene field-effect transistors simultaneously, and show that the final electronic properties of the MoS₂-graphene heterostructure are dominated by the molecular interface. We use a bifunctional molecule with two chemically orthogonal anchor points, selective for sulphides and carbon-based materials. Our experiments highlight the potential of the chemical approach to build 2D-2D heterostructures beyond van der Waals.