Construction of bilayer PdSe₂ on epitaxial graphene

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have received significant attention due to their unique physical properties and potential applications in electronics and optoelectronics. Recent studies have demonstrated that exfoliated PdSe₂, a layered transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), exhibits ambipolar field-effect transistor (FET) behavior with notable performance and good air stability, and thus serves as an emerging candidate for 2D electronics. Here, we report the growth of bilayer PdSe₂ on a graphene-SiC(0001) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). A bandgap of 1.15 ± 0.07 eV was revealed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). Moreover, a bandgap shift of 0.2 eV was observed in PdSe₂ layers grown on monolayer graphene as compared to those grown on bilayer graphene. The realization of nanoscale electronic junctions with atomically sharp boundaries in 2D PdSe₂ implies the possibility of tuning its electronic or optoelectronic properties. In addition, on top of the PdSe₂ bilayers, PdSe₂ nanoribbons and stacks of nanoribbons with a fixed orientation have been fabricated. The bottom-up fabrication of low-dimensional PdSe₂ structures is expected to enable substantial exploration of its potential applications. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].