Enhanced van der Waals epitaxy via electron transfer-enabled interfacial dative bond formation

Enhanced van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy of semiconductors on layered vdW substrate is identified as the formation of dative bonds. For example, despite that NbSe2 is a vdW layered material, first-principles calculations reveal that the bond strength at CdTe-NbSe2 interface is five times as large as that of vdW interaction at CdTe-graphene interface. The unconventional chemistry here is enabled by an effective net electron transfer from Cd dangling-bond states at CdTe surface to metallic non-bonding NbSe2 states, which is a necessary condition to activate the Cd for enhanced binding with Se.