Scanning SQUID microscopy (SSM) on van der Waals heterostructure with in situ uniaxial strain

Van der Waals (vdW) materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, are atomically-thin, crystalline materials that exhibit a rich variety of electronic phenomena. Application of uniaxial strain can be a powerful tool to alter the properties of materials by breaking symmetry and modulating electronic structure. SSM probes local magnetization, electronic transport and magnetic response, which can give insights into the electronic phenomena observed in vdW materials. Our goal is to implement local magnetic measurements using an SSM on uniaxially strained vdW materials. Our setup is based on a commercial piezoelectric strain cell and devices fabricated on a polyimide substrate. In this talk, we report our progress towards using this approach to apply strain to vdW materials and integration with SSM.