All-dry flip-over stacking of van der Waals junctions of 2D materials using polyvinyl chloride

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 21963
• Main Authors: Onodera, Momoko, Wakafuji, Yusai, Hashimoto, Taketo, Masubuchi, Satoru, Moriya, Rai, Zhang, Yijin, Watanabe, Kenji, Taniguchi, Takashi, Machida, Tomoki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group UK 19.12.2022; Nature Portfolio
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-26193-z

We demonstrated an all-dry polymer-to-polymer transfer technique for two-dimensional (2D) crystal flakes using a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) layer deposited on a piece of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Unexpectedly, the pickup/release temperatures were modified in wider temperature range simply by changing the thickness of the PVC layer than changing the plasticizer ratio. Utilizing the difference in the pickup/release temperatures depending on the PVC film thickness, 2D flakes were transferred from a thicker PVC film to a thinner one. This polymer-to-polymer transfer technique can be utilized to flip over van der Waals heterostructures. As a demonstration, we fabricated a mountain-like stacked structure of hexagonal boron nitride flakes using the flip-over stacking technique. Finally, we compared the results of thermomechanical analysis with the pickup/release temperatures of the PVC/PDMS stamp. The PVC was revealed to be at the glass transition and in the viscoelastic flow regimes when the 2D flakes were picked up and dry released, respectively. Our polymer-to-polymer transfer method facilitates flip-over van der Waals stacking in an all-dry manner, expanding the possibility of 2D materials device fabrications.