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.