2D van der Waals crystals, a class of materials that exhibit strong in-plane covalent bonds and weak interlayer interactions, have recently become the focus of numerous research studies due to their plethora of unique electrical, optical, and mechanical properties. Curiously, when a hybrid vertical stacking of different sheets of van der Waals crystals is assembled, it gains new properties absent from any of its constituent layers.
Click here for original story, A robotic method for assembling complex van der Waals solids
Source: Phys.org