Monolayer superconductors enter the circuit

Owing to its reduced dimensionality, monolayer NbSe2 hosts various strongly correlated phenomena, including superconductivity. However, exposure to air rapidly degrades its superconducting properties. Moreover, NbSe2 flakes obtained by existing growth methods are often too small or insufficiently uniform or have poor crystal quality for scalable applications. Zheng and colleagues overcame these limitations by developing an encapsulation-epitaxy strategy, in which a two-dimensional layer such as graphene or hexagonal boron nitride acts both as a growth template and as a protective cap.Specifically, they transferred the encapsulation layer onto a SiO2/Si substrate. They then placed the substrate and the niobium oxide film face to face at the centre of a furnace, with selenium powder and NaCl positioned upstream. As a result of the strong interaction between the adatom and SiO2, as well as the low diffusion barrier on the surface of the encapsulation layer, gaseous precursors diffused into the van der Waals gap between the encapsulation layer and the substrate, nucleated and grew into a continuous monolayer NbSe2 film. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access options Access through your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription $32.99 / 30 days cancel any time Learn more Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $259.00 per year only $21.58 per issue Learn more Rent or buy this article Prices vary by article type from$1.95 to$39.95 Learn more Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Subjects Qubits Superconducting devices Superconducting properties and materials Two-dimensional materials Author informationAuthors and AffiliationsNature Physics https://www.nature.com/nphys/Lishu WuAuthorsLishu WuView author publicationsSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarCorresponding authorCorrespondence to Lishu Wu.Rights and permissionsReprints and permissionsAbout this articleCite this articleWu, L. Monolayer superconductors enter the circuit. Nat. Phys. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-026-03462-6Download citationPublished: 09 September 2026Version of record: 09 September 2026DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-026-03462-6Share this articleAnyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable linkSorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative