"van der Waals nanoreactors "
Abstract: Stacks of van der Waals (vdW) layered materials in the atomically thin limit offer exciting platforms to discover quantum phenomena thanks to striking modifications of electronic properties of the materials inside the stacks. In this talk, I will introduce a new angle of viewing vdW stacks as an exceptional approach for constructing nanoconfined reactors in which chemical reactivity of stacked materials is strongly modified. I will show a few synthetic examples and demonstrate the principle and workflows for employing vdW nanoreactors to synthesize both bulk crystals with micrometer-scale sizes and new 2D compounds. As a highlight, I will further demonstrate the realization of a "nanowriter" of 2D metals and superconductors directly synthesized within fully protected vdW stacks, allowing for high quality construction of novel 2D devices with nanoscale precision. The use of vdW nanoreactors for integrating superconductivity with moiré quantum matter, especially topological and fractional quantum states, will be envisioned.