Ultrafast Interfacial Self-Assembly of 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Monolayer Films and Their Vertical and In-Plane Heterostructures.

Cost effective scalable method for uniform film formation is highly demanded for the emerging applications of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). We demonstrate a reliable and fast interfacial self-assembly of TMD thin films and their heterostructures. Large-area 2D TMD monolayer films are assembled at air-water interface in a few minutes by simple addition of ethyl acetate (EA) onto dilute aqueous dispersions of TMDs. Assembled TMD films can be directly transferred onto arbitrary nonplanar and flexible substrates. Precise thickness controllability of TMD thin films, which is essential for thickness-dependent applications, can be readily obtained by the number of film stacking. Most importantly, complex structures such as laterally assembled 2D heterostructures of TMDs can be assembled from mixture solution dispersions of two or more different TMDs. This unusually fast interfacial self-assembly could open up a novel applications of 2D TMD materials with precise tunability of layer number and film structures.