Two-dimensional (3D) materials are well-established building blocks with dangling bond-free film surfaces building van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures and vdW integration [1]. Recent advent on advanced epitaxy and layer lift-off technologies have enabled a wide spectrum of single-crystalline 3D nanomembranes that can also be exfoliated from parent substrate as freestanding form [2-4] with vdW interfaces to facilitate vdW integration with other 2D or 3D nanomembranes.

We present a recent survey on latest progress of vdW integration for photonic and optoelectronic applications, encompassing a wide range of 2D and 3D freestanding thin-films and their vdW heterostructures [5, 6]. These vdW building blocks can be transferred and optically couple with diverse photonic structures (Fig. 1) to investigate nanophotonic polaritonic physics [7-9], and permit advanced heterogeneously integrated photonics, without the constraints of lattice matching or process compatibility that apply to heteroepitaxy.

A comprehensive survey from 2D and 3D nanomembranes preparation to device implementation are presented (Fig. 2). Awaiting challenges and emergent opportunities are also outlined based on current perspectives.  The detailed information of the Review is appended below. Thank you very much for your reading.

Corresponding authors: Prof. Sang-Hoon Bae (WUSTL), Prof. Cheng-Wei Qiu (NUS), Prof. Lan Yang (WUSTL), Prof. Jin-Wook Lee (SKKU).

Article Information:

Y. Meng, J. Feng, S. Han, et al. Photonic van der Waals integration from 2D materials to 3D nanomembranes, Nature Reviews Materials (2023).

DOI: 10.1038/s41578-023-00558-w

Article link:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-023-00558-w

References:

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