In this work we demonstrate that a free-standing van der Waals heterostructure, usually regarded as a flat object, can exhibit an intrinsic buckled atomic structure resulting from the interaction between two layers with a small lattice mismatch. We studied a freely suspended membrane of well-aligned graphene on a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) monolayer by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) ...

Quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, with potential applications in low-power-consumption electronics, is predicted in the heterostructure of graphene on the (001) surface of a real antiferromagnetic insulator RbMnCl3, based on density-functional theory and Wannier function methods. Due to the interactions from the substrate, a much large exchange field (about 280 meV) and an enhanced Rashba sp...

We study the "hybrid" heterostructure formed by one sheet of single-layer graphene (SLG) and one sheet of bilayer graphene (BLG) separated by a thin film of dielectric material. In general, it is expected that interlayer interactions can drive the system to a spontaneously broken-symmetry state characterized by interlayer phase coherence. The peculiarity of the SLG-BLG heterostructure is that t...

Twinned growth behaviour in the rapidly emerging area of two-dimensional nanomaterials still remains unexplored although it could be exploited to fabricate heterostructure and superlattice materials. Here we demonstrate how one can utilize the twinned growth relationship between two two-dimensional materials to construct vertically stacked heterostructures. As a demonstration, we achieve 100% o...

The search for strongly inversion asymmetric topological insulators is an active research field because these materials possess distinct properties compared with the inversion symmetric ones. In particular, it is desirable to realize a large Rashba spin-splitting (RSS) in such materials, which combined with the topological surface states (TSS) could lead to useful spintronics applications. In t...

A magnetic domain boundary on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator is predicted to host a chiral edge state, but direct demonstration is challenging. We used a scanning superconducting quantum interference device to show that current in a magnetized topological insulator heterostructure (EuS/Bi2Se3) flows at the edge when the Fermi level is gate-tuned to the surface band gap...

We demonstrate spin-dependent tunneling features of electronic transport in diluted magnetic semiconductor/semiconductor hybrid systems. It is shown that the geometrical asymmetry of the multilayer heterostructure results in the asymmetry of the spin polarization on the external electric field. The degree of the asymmetry can be changed by adjusting the structural configuration and the magnitud...

We discuss the properties of a ferromagnet superconductor heterostructure on the basis of a Hubbard model featuring exchange splitting in the ferromagnet and electron electron attraction in the superconductor. We have solved the spin polarized Hartree Fock Gorkov equations together with the Maxwell’s equation (Ampere’s law) fully self-consistently. We have found that a Proximity Effect Fulde Fe...

Van der Waals heterostructures formed by two different monolayer semiconductors have emerged as a promising platform for new optoelectronic and spin/valleytronic applications. In addition to its atomically thin nature, a two-dimensional semiconductor heterostructure is distinct from its three-dimensional counterparts due to the unique coupled spin-valley physics of its constituent monolayers. H...

In this letter, we examine the potential of a functional device that can have good transistor and stress sensor properties. The device examined is based on the use of a thin oxide with high piezoelectric coefficients under the gate region. Channel charge and current are controlled by gate voltage or by stress. We examine the performance of two classes of heterostructures that are important semi...