Abstract
Recent advances in the field of two-dimensional (2D) materials have led to new electronic and photonic devices enabled by their unique properties at atomic thickness. Structuring 2D materials into desired patterns on substrates is often an essential and foremost step for the optimum performance of the functional devices. In this regard, optical patterning of 2D materials has received enormous interest due to its advantages of high-throughput, site-specific, and on-demand fabrication. Recent years have witnessed scientific reports of a variety of optical techniques applicable to patterning 2D materials. In this minireview, we present the state-of-the-art optical patterning of 2D materials, including laser thinning, doping, phase transition, oxidation, and ablation. Several applications based on optically patterned 2D materials will be discussed as well. With further developments, optical patterning is expected to hold the key in pushing the frontiers of manufacturing and applications of 2D materials.
Highlights
Nanomaterials, with at least one geometric dimension at the nanometer scale, have immense applications in miniaturization of existing technology while rendering the intense exploration of fundamental phenomena at nanoscale. 2D materials are a subset of the nanomaterials where geometric length of only one dimension reaches the nanometer regime [1]
Graphene has reigned the 2D material community for more than a decade, but has been gaining an ever-increasing competition from other 2D materials and their van der Waals heterostructures such as hexagonal boron nitride, phosphorene, and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) [7]
Researchers have been consistently exploiting a variety 2D materials to enhance the performance of energy storage [8], transistors [9,10,11,12], Hall effect sensors [13], flexible electronics [14, 15], optical modulators [16], and thermal management [17, 18]
Summary
Nanomaterials, with at least one geometric dimension at the nanometer scale, have immense applications in miniaturization of existing technology while rendering the intense exploration of fundamental phenomena at nanoscale. 2D materials are a subset of the nanomaterials where geometric length of only one dimension reaches the nanometer regime [1]. The conventional electron beam lithography (EBL) has been widely exploited to pattern 2D materials with nanometer scale features [24, 25] Challenges such as high cost of instruments, high vacuum, complex operation, and low throughput significantly limit the use of EBL. We review the state-of-the-art optical patterning techniques of 2D materials and categorize them based on different patterning mechanisms: (i) site-specific control over the thickness of 2D materials through laser thinning, (ii) laser-induced doping and phase transition of 2D materials, (iii) oxidation of 2D materials that are selectively excited upon laser irradiation, and (iv) patterning through laser ablation of 2D materials Both high-power femtosecond laser ablation and low-power continuous wave (CW) laser ablation using plasmon-enhanced optothermal effects will be discussed. We conclude this review by outlining some of these challenges and their possible solutions and future opportunities in the field of optical patterning of 2D materials
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