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Electrostatic-based transfer keeps 2D materials ultra-clean

A technique that spontaneously detaches a 2D material from the substrate on which it was grown creates high-quality nanoscale electronic devices.
By
  1. Wanqing Meng

    1. Wanqing Meng is in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

  2. Lain-Jong Li

    1. Lain-Jong Li is in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575.

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Crystalline sheets just a few atoms thick, known as 2D materials, are promising substances for building electronic devices at the sub-nanometre scale. However, to be integrated onto an electronic chip, 2D materials must be cleanly detached, or ‘delaminated’, from the substrate on which they are grown. The materials adhere very strongly to their substrates, so this is challenging to achieve without using chemicals that damage and contaminate the material. Writing in Nature, Zheng et al.1 report a technique that uses the repulsion between charged surfaces in a solution to spontaneously detach a 2D material. The authors’ approach enables clean, high-yield transfer of the 2D material at scales of several centimetres — large enough to build entire circuits. This is an important step towards the widespread integration of 2D materials into electronics.

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Nature 645, 857-858 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02822-1

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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