Van der Waals heterostructures incorporating graphene, perovskites and other 2D materials

For the past decade, halide perovskites have been subject to tremendous interest from the material science community, due to their potential use in high efficiency solar cells and bright light-emitting devices. Some key attributes of these perovskite materials include cheap fabrication processes, strong absorption coefficients and low non-radiative carrier recombination rates. Recently, the synthesis of 2D halide perovskite crystals have been achieved, demonstrating promising stability properties, as well as large carrier mobilities and intense photo- and electro-luminescence.

2D materials have triggered an unparalleled momentum, driving research on a new class of materials: van der Waals heterostructures, consisting in different 2D crystals stacked on top of each-others. These artificial materials present new and intriguing electronic properties, taking advantage of the absence of long-range order, 2D excitons or many-bodies instabilities such as superconductivity, and allowing observation of quantum relativistic phenomena.

This project aims at creating van der Waals heterostructures by stacking 2D halide perovskite crystals in heterostructures with graphene and studying the electronic properties of the assembly. The new devices are expected to have a number of technologically important properties and have a realistic potential to contribute to innovative semiconductor technologies.