Tips and Tricks for Fabricating and Characterizing Atomically Thin van der Waals Materials

Van der Waals materials have occupied the forefront of modern condensed matter physics research over the past decade in both immediate and long-term contexts. Short-term applications include the development of electro-optic designer materials, while longer-term applications involve the creation of single-photon-emitting light sources. Motivated by this interest, there exists a need to expand access to and innovate upon fabrication and characterization techniques. Here we summarize some of the recent progress that master's students and undergraduates have made at San Jose State University in this area. We discuss our mechanical exfoliation fabrication techniques and characterization techniques, including optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy, temperature-dependent photoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy, and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). This research demonstrates that undergraduate and master's students can easily incorporate van der Waals materials research into their projects and offers a set of guidelines for best practices.