Interplay between spin-crossover and strain in hybrid inorganic/molecular van der Waals heterostructures.
Carla Boix Constant a, Samuel Mañas a, Eugenio Coronado a
a Universidad de Valencia - ICMol (Institute of Molecular Science), Catedrático José Beltrán Martinez 2, Paterna, Spain
Proceedings of Organic 2D Crystalline Materials: Chemistry, Physics and Devices (O2DMAT)
Madrid, Spain, 2022 September 15th - 16th
Organizers: Enrique Cánovas, Renhao Dong and Hai Wang
Contributed talk, Carla Boix Constant, presentation 024
Publication date: 11th July 2022

Van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) provide the possibility of engineering new materials with emergent functionalities that are not accessible in another way. These heterostructures are formed by assembling layers of different materials used as building blocks. Beyond inorganic 2D crystals, layered molecular materials remain still rather unexplored, with only few examples regarding their isolation as atomically thin layers. Here, the family of van der Waals heterostructures is enlarged by introducing a molecular building block able to produce strain: the so-called spin-crossover (SCO). In these metal–organic materials, a spin transition can be induced by applying external stimuli like light, temperature, pressure, or an electric field. In particular, smart vdWHs are prepared in which the electronic and optical properties of the 2D material (graphene and WSe2) are clearly switched by the strain concomitant to the spin transition. These molecular/inorganic vdWHs represent the deterministic incorporation of bistable molecular layers with other 2D crystals of interest in the emergent fields of straintronics and band engineering in low-dimensional materials.

The  authors  acknowledge  the  financial  support  from  the  European  Union  (ERC  AdG  Mol-2D  788222,  FET-Open  COSMICS  766726),  the  Spanish   MICINN   (2D-HETEROS   PID2020-117152RB-100,   SUPERSCO   PID2020-117264GB-100,   co-financed   by   FEDER,   and   Excellence   Unit   “María de Maeztu” CEX2019-000919-M), and the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO  Program  and  PO  FEDER  Program,  IDIFEDER/2018/061).  C.B.-C.  thanks  the  Generalitat  Valenciana  for  a  Ph.D  fellowship.  The authors  thank  Safiya  Ouazza  for  her  help  regarding  the  WSe2-based vdWHs and Ángel López-Muñoz for his constant technical support and helpful discussions.

© FUNDACIO DE LA COMUNITAT VALENCIANA SCITO
We use our own and third party cookies for analysing and measuring usage of our website to improve our services. If you continue browsing, we consider accepting its use. You can check our Cookies Policy in which you will also find how to configure your web browser for the use of cookies. More info