The encapsulation of a monolayer of CdSe quantum dots (QDs) by one-to-three layer graphene and MoS 2 sheets protects the QDs from oxidation. Photoluminescence (PL) from the QD cores shows a much slower decrease in core diameter over time due to slower oxidation in regions where the QDs are covered by van der Waals (vdW) layers than in those where they are not, both for chips stored in the dark and in the presence of light. PL mapping shows that the CdSe QDs under the central part of the vdW sheet age slower than those near its edges, because oxidation of the covered QDs is limited by transport of oxygen from the edges of the vdW sheets and not transport across the vdW layers. The transport of oxygen to the covered QDs is analyzed by coupling the PL results and a model of QD core oxidation.

Quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) materials hold promise for future electronics because of their unique band structures that result in electronic and mechanical properties sensitive to crystal strains in all three dimensions. Quantifying crystal strain is a prerequisite to correlating it with the performance of the device, and calls for high resolution but spatially resolved rapid characterization methods. Here we show that using fly-scan nano X-ray diffraction we can accomplish a tensile strain sensitivity below 0.001% with a spatial resolution of better than 80 nm over a spatial extent of 100 µm on quasi 2D flakes of 1T-TaS2. Coherent diffraction patterns were collected from a ~100 nm thick sheet of 1T-TaS2 by scanning 12keV focused X-ray beam across and rotating the sample. We demonstrate that the strain distribution around micron and sub-micron sized 'bubbles' that are present in the sample may be reconstructed from these images. The experiments use state of the art synchrotron instrumentation, but are rapid and straightforward and present novel method for detailed strain mapping of thin samples.

Using scanning near-field optical microscopy at cryogenic temperatures, we explored the first-order metal-insulator transition of exfoliated 1T-TaS2 microcrystals on a SiO2/Si substrate. We clearly observed spatially-separated metallic and insulating states during the transition between commensurate and nearly-commensurate charge density wave phases. The capability to probe electrodynamics on nanometer length scales revealed temperature-dependent electronic properties of the insulating and metallic regions near the transition temperature. At fixed temperature, a remarkably broad spatial boundary between insulating and metallic regions was observed, across which the nano-optical signal smoothly evolved over a length scale of several hundred nanometers. In order to understand these observations, we performed Ginzburg-Landau calculations to determine the charge density wave structure of the domain boundary, which revealed the existence of an intermediate electronic phase with unique properties distinct from the bulk thermodynamic phases.