Pre-adsorption of water molecules on a material surface, followed by assembly of a van der Waals (vdW) structure, provides a vdW water gap with a height that can be precisely tuned through variation of the amount of water adsorbed at the interface. This approach is applicable to different two-dimensional and even three-dimensional homo- and heterojunctions.
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This is a summary of: Liu, C. et al. Controllable van der Waals gaps by water adsorption. Nat. Nanotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01579-w (2024).
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Precise control of van der Waals gaps. Nat. Nanotechnol. 19, 426–427 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01582-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01582-1
