In our group, we employ a combination of advanced nanofabrication techniques, integrating both top-down methods (such as etching and lithography) and bottom-up approaches (like chemical vapor deposition). This allows us to develop innovative strategies for fabricating diverse morphologies in low-dimensional 2D van der Waals (vdW) materials, which we use to investigate the resulting local electronic properties.

Specifically, we design, fabricate, and optimize vdW materials and their nanostructures in non-trivial configurations, making significant contributions to the exploration of Moiré physics — a field that studies the unique phenomena arising from the novel crystalline patterns formed by stacking and twisting vdW materials.

• Position-Controlled Fabrication of Vertically-Aligned Mo/MoS₂ Core-Shell Nanopillar Arrays. L. Maduro, M. Noordam, M. Bolhuis, L. Kuipers, and S. Conesa-Boj [Advanced Functional Materials 32, 2107880 (2022)]
• Molybdenum nanopillar arrays: Fabrication and engineering. Louis Maduro, Charles de Boer, Marc Zuiddam, Elvedin Memisevic, and Sonia Conesa-Boj [Physica E Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures 134, 114903 (2021)]
• Illuminating the electronic properties of WS₂ polytypism with electron microscopy. S. E. van Heijst, M. Mukai, E. Okunishi, H. Hashiguchi, L. I. Roest, L. Maduro, J. Rojo, and S. Conesa-Boj [Ann. Phys. (Berlin) (2021)]
• Vertically-oriented MoS₂ nanosheets for nonlinear optical devices. M. Bolhuis, J. Hernández-Rueda, S. E. van Heijst, M. Tinoco Rivas, L. Kuipers, and S. Conesa-Boj [Nanoscale, 12, 10491 (2020)]