Chemical vapor deposition growth of two-dimensional heterojunctions

The properties of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials with atom-smooth surface and special interlayer van der Waals coupling are different from those of traditional materials. Due to the absence of dangling bonds from the clean surface of 2D layered materials, the lattice mismatch influences slightly on the growth of 2D heterojunctions, thus providing a flexible design strategy. 2D heterojunctions have attracted extensive attention because of their excellent performance in optoelectronics, spintronics, and valleytronics. The transfer method was utilized for the fabrication of 2D heterojunctions during the early stage of fundamental research on these materials. This method, however, has limited practical applications. Therefore, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method was recently developed and applied for the preparation of 2D heterojunctions. The CVD method is a naturally down-top growth strategy that yields 2D heterojunctions with sharp interfaces. Moreover, this method effectively reduces the introduction of contaminants to the fabricated heterojunctions. Nevertheless, the CVD-growth method is sensitive to variations in growth conditions. In this review article, we attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the influence of growth conditions on the fabrication of 2D heterojunctions through the direct CVD method. We believe that elucidating the effects of growth conditions on the CVD method is necessary to help control and improve the efficiency of the large-scale fabrication of 2D heterojunctions for future applications in integrated circuits.