科技科学

Encapsulation epitaxy of air-stable 2D superconductors for quantum circuits

Nature作者：Xudong Zheng2026年8月5日正文已收录本站

Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions herein are present in the paper.

References

  1. Saito, Y., Nojima, T. & Iwasa, Y. Highly crystalline 2D superconductors. Nat. Rev. Mater. 2, 16094 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Liu, X. & Hersam, M. C. 2D materials for quantum information science. Nat. Rev. Mater. 4, 669–684 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Wang, J. I. J. et al. Hexagonal boron nitride as a low-loss dielectric for superconducting quantum circuits and qubits. Nat. Mater. 21, 398–403 (2022).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Antony, A. et al. Miniaturizing transmon qubits using van der Waals materials. Nano Lett. 21, 10122–10126 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Balgley, J. et al. Crystalline superconductor–semiconductor Josephson junctions for compact superconducting qubits. Phys. Rev. Appl. 24, 034016 (2025).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Cao, Y. et al. Quality heterostructures from two-dimensional crystals unstable in air by their assembly in inert atmosphere. Nano Lett. 15, 4914–4921 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Xi, X. et al. Strongly enhanced charge-density-wave order in monolayer NbSe2. Nat. Nanotechnol. 10, 765–769 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Peri, V., Ilani, S., Lee, P. A. & Refael, G. Probing quantum spin liquids with a quantum twisting microscope. Phys. Rev. B 109, 035127 (2024).

  9. Xi, X. et al. Ising pairing in superconducting NbSe2 atomic layers. Nat. Phys. 12, 139–143 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Li, T. et al. Epitaxial growth of wafer-scale molybdenum disulfide semiconductor single crystals on sapphire. Nat. Nanotechnol. 16, 1201–1207 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Zhu, J. et al. Low-thermal-budget synthesis of monolayer molybdenum disulfide for silicon back-end-of-line integration on a 200 mm platform. Nat. Nanotechnol. 18, 456–463 (2023).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Xia, Y. et al. 12-inch growth of uniform MoS2 monolayer for integrated circuit manufacture. Nat. Mater. 22, 1324–1331 (2023).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Zhou, J. et al. A library of atomically thin metal chalcogenides. Nature 556, 355–359 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Ugeda, M. M. et al. Characterization of collective ground states in single-layer NbSe2. Nat. Phys. 12, 92–97 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Naritsuka, M. et al. Superconductivity controlled by twist angle in monolayer NbSe2 on graphene. Nat. Phys. 21, 746–753 (2025).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Wang, H. et al. High-quality monolayer superconductor NbSe2 grown by chemical vapour deposition. Nat. Commun. 8, 394 (2017).

  17. Li, J. et al. Printable two-dimensional superconducting monolayers. Nat. Mater. 20, 181–187 (2021).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Zhou, Z. J. et al. Stack growth of wafer-scale van der Waals superconductor heterostructures. Nature 621, 499–505 (2023).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Fu, Z. et al. Van der Waals growth of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide superconductors on ultra-flat graphene. 2D Mater. 12, 015021 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Al Balushi, Z. et al. Two-dimensional gallium nitride realized via graphene encapsulation. Nat. Mater. 15, 1166–1171 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Pécz, B. et al. Indium nitride at the 2D limit. Adv. Mater. 33, 2006660 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Liu, X. & Hersam, M. C. Borophene–graphene heterostructures. Sci. Adv. 5, eaax6444 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  23. Xie, C. et al. Space-confined growth of monolayer ReSe2 under a graphene layer on Au foils. Nano Res. 12, 149–157 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Bian, C. et al. Atomically precise synthesis and simultaneous heterostructure integration of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides through nano-confinement. Nat. Mater. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02495-9 (2026).

  25. Chen, C. W., Choe, J. & Morosan, E. Charge density waves in strongly correlated electron systems. Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 084505 (2016).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Venables, J. A., Spiller, G. D. T. & Hanbucken, M. Nucleation and growth of thin films. Rep. Prog. Phys. 47, 399–459 (1984).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Venables, J. A. Atomic processes in crystal growth. Surf. Sci. 200–300, 798–817 (1994).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. Seebauer, E. G. & Allen, C. E. Estimating surface diffusion coefficients. Prog. Surf. Sci. 49, 265–330 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Wickramaratne, D., Khmelevskyi, S., Agterberg, D. F. & Mazin, I. Ising superconductivity and magnetism in NbSe2. Phys. Rev. X 10, 041003 (2020).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Moon, D. et al. Hypotaxy of wafer-scale single-crystal transition metal dichalcogenides. Nature 638, 957–964 (2025).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Cho, K. et al. Using controlled disorder to probe the interplay between charge order and superconductivity in NbSe2. Nat. Commun. 9, 2796 (2018).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  32. Lee, J. et al. Optical separation of mechanical strain from charge doping in graphene. Nat. Commun. 3, 1024 (2012).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Wang, Y. et al. Modulation doping via a two-dimensional atomic crystalline acceptor. Nano Lett. 20, 8446–8452 (2020).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Zheng, X. et al. Electrostatic-repulsion-based transfer of van der Waals materials. Nature 645, 906–914 (2025).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Tinkham, M. et al. Hysteretic I–V curves of superconducting nanowires. Phys. Rev. B 68, 134515 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  36. Sinko, M. R. et al. Superconducting contact and quantum interference between two-dimensional van der Waals and three-dimensional conventional superconductors. Phys. Rev. Mater. 5, 014001 (2021).

  37. Tanaka, M. et al. Superfluid stiffness of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene. Nature 638, 99–105 (2025).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Zaman, S. et al. Kinetic inductance of few-layer NbSe2 in the two-dimensional limit. Nat. Commun. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75672-8 (2026).

  39. Probst, S., Song, F. B., Bushev, P. A., Ustinov, A. V. & Weides, M. Efficient and robust analysis of complex scattering data under noise in microwave resonators. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 86, 024706 (2015).

  40. Frasca, S. et al. NbN films with high kinetic inductance for high-quality compact superconducting resonators. Phys. Rev. Appl. 20, 044021 (2023).

  41. Bretz-Sullivan, T. M. et al. High kinetic inductance NbTiN superconducting transmission line resonators in the very thin film limit. Appl. Phys. Lett. 121, 052602 (2022).

  42. Amin, K. R. et al. Loss mechanisms in TiN high impedance superconducting microwave circuits. Appl. Phys. Lett. 120, 164001 (2022).

  43. Winkel, P. et al. Implementation of a transmon qubit using superconducting granular aluminum. Phys. Rev. X 10, 031032 (2020).

  44. Niepce, D., Burnett, J. & Bylander, J. High kinetic inductance NbN nanowire superinductors. Phys. Rev. Appl. 11, 044014 (2019).

  45. Shearrow, A. et al. Atomic layer deposition of titanium nitride for quantum circuits. Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 212601 (2018).

  46. Samkharadze, N. et al. High-kinetic-inductance superconducting nanowire resonators for circuit QED in a magnetic field. Phys. Rev. Appl. 5, 44004 (2016).

  47. Coumou, P. C. J. J. et al. Microwave properties of superconducting atomic-layer deposited TiN films. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. 23, 7500404–7500404 (2013).

  48. Shaikhaidarov, R. S. et al. Quantized current steps due to the a.c. coherent quantum phase-slip effect. Nature 608, 45–49 (2022).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Szypryt, P. et al. Kinetic inductance current sensor for visible to near-infrared wavelength transition-edge sensor readout. Commun. Eng. 3, 160 (2024).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  50. Rieger, D. et al. Granular aluminium nanojunction fluxonium qubit. Nat. Mater. 22, 194–199 (2023).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Xue, G. et al. Large-area epitaxial growth of transition metal dichalcogenides. Chem. Rev. 124, 9785–9865 (2024).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Kresse, G. & Furthmüller, J. Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set. Comput. Mater. Sci. 6, 15–50 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Sheppard, D., Terrell, R. & Henkelman, G. Optimization methods for finding minimum energy paths. J. Chem. Phys. 128, 134106 (2008).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  54. Redhead, P. A. Thermal desorption of gases. Vacuum 12, 203–211 (1962).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Frank Zhao, S. Y. et al. Time-reversal symmetry breaking superconductivity between twisted cuprate superconductors. Science 382, 1422–1427 (2023).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  56. Senger, C. et al. Defect healing in graphene via rapid thermal annealing with polymeric “nanobandage”. Small 19, 2206295 (2023).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  57. Sakuma, Y. et al. Self-aligned and self-limiting van der Waals epitaxy of monolayer MoS2 for scalable 2D electronics. Nat. Commun. 17, 602 (2026).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  58. Jain, A. et al. Commentary: The Materials Project: a materials genome approach to accelerating materials innovation. APL Mater. 1, 011002 (2013).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  59. Grünhaupt, L. et al. Granular aluminium as a superconducting material for high-impedance quantum circuits. Nat. Mater. 18, 816–819 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  60. Moshe, A. G., Farber, E. & Deutscher, G. Granular superconductors for high kinetic inductance and low loss quantum devices. Appl. Phys. Lett. 117, 062601 (2020).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  61. Khestanova, E. et al. Unusual suppression of the superconducting energy gap and critical temperature in atomically thin NbSe2. Nano Lett. 18, 2623–2629 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  62. Zhang, Y. et al. Edge-epitaxial growth of 2D NbS2–WS2 lateral metal–semiconductor heterostructures. Adv. Mater. 30, 1803665 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Su, J. et al. Sub-millimeter-scale monolayer p-type H-phase VS2. Adv. Funct. Mater. 30, 2000240 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  64. You, J. et al. Salt-assisted selective growth of H-phase monolayer VSe2 with apparent hole transport behavior. Nano Lett. 22, 10167–10175 (2022).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  65. Jiang, Y. C., Gao, J. & Wang, L. Raman fingerprint for semi-metal WTe2 evolving from bulk to monolayer. Sci. Rep. 6, 19624 (2016).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank B. Ilyas for discussions.

Funding

This work was carried out in part through the use of MIT.nano’s facilities. X.Z., S.Z., S.P., J.Î-j.W., W.D.O. and J.K. acknowledge the support by the US Army Research Office grant number W911NF2210023. S.Z., S.P., J.Î-j.W. and W.D.O. acknowledge the support from the National Science Foundation for grant number 2412810. S.Z. acknowledges support from the Faculty for the Future Fellowship from the Schlumberger Foundation. K.Z., T.H.Y. and J.K. acknowledge the support by the National Science Foundation under award number 2527588. C.A.O., L.G.P.M. and R.C. acknowledge the support by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science National Quantum Information Science Research Center’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) under contract number DE-SC0012704. C2QA participated in this research. Y.Z. and J.K. acknowledge the support by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA2386-24-1-4049. Z.W. and J.K. acknowledge the support by the Semiconductor Research Corporation Center 7 in JUMP 2.0 (award number 145105-21913). T.Z. and J.K. acknowledge the support by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES) under award DE-SC0020042. Z.H. and J.K. acknowledge the support from the US Army DEVCOM ARL Army Research Office through the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies under Cooperative Agreement number W911NF-23-2-0121. X.L. and Y.H. acknowledge support from NSF (FUSE-2329111 and CMMI-2239545) and Welch Foundation (C-2065). X.L. and Y.H. acknowledge the Electron Microscopy Center, Rice University. X.L. acknowledges support from the Rice Advanced Materials Institute (RAMI) at Rice University as a RAMI Postdoctoral Fellow. Part of the cross-sectional TEM studies were performed using the facilities in the UConn/Thermo Fisher Scientific Center for Advanced Microscopy and Materials Analysis (CAMMA). S.L. and P.K. acknowledge support from DMR-2105048 (NSF). S.P. acknowledges the support by the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant number RS-2025-02317602). S.V., K.T. and S.M. acknowledge the support by the Department of the Air Force under Air Force Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0001 and FA8702-25-D-B002. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements of the US Government, the National Science Foundation, or the Department of the Air Force.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xudong Zheng, Sameia Zaman, Kenan Zhang

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Xudong Zheng, Sameia Zaman, Kenan Zhang, Tianyi Zhang, Tilo H. Yang, Jiangtao Wang, Yunyue Zhu, Zachariah Hennighausen, William D. Oliver & Jing Kong

  2. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Sameia Zaman, Sein Park, William D. Oliver, Joel Î-j. Wang & Jing Kong

  3. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Connor A. Occhialini, Riccardo Comin & William D. Oliver

  4. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Haowei Xu & Ju Li

  5. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Zhien Wang

  6. Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Xinyan Li & Yimo Han

  7. Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Xinyan Li & Yimo Han

  8. Department of Materials Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Fangyuan Liu & Cong Su

  9. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Luiz Gustavo Pimenta Martins, Sejoon Lim & Phillip Kim

  10. Department of Physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Sein Park

  11. Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, MA, USA

    Steven Vitale, Kevin Tibbetts & Stephen Margiotta

  12. Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Yimo Han

  13. Department of Physics, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Joel Î-j. Wang

Authors

  1. Xudong Zheng
  2. Sameia Zaman
  3. Kenan Zhang
  4. Connor A. Occhialini
  5. Haowei Xu
  6. Zhien Wang
  7. Xinyan Li
  8. Fangyuan Liu
  9. Luiz Gustavo Pimenta Martins
  10. Sejoon Lim
  11. Tianyi Zhang
  12. Tilo H. Yang
  13. Jiangtao Wang
  14. Yunyue Zhu
  15. Zachariah Hennighausen
  16. Sein Park
  17. Steven Vitale
  18. Kevin Tibbetts
  19. Stephen Margiotta
  20. Phillip Kim
  21. Cong Su
  22. Yimo Han
  23. Ju Li
  24. Riccardo Comin
  25. William D. Oliver
  26. Joel Î-j. Wang
  27. Jing Kong

Contributions

J.K., J.Î-j.W. and W.D.O. supervised the project. X.Z. and S.Z. conceived of the experiments. X.Z. developed the encapsulation-epitaxy growth method. S.Z. performed the superconducting device fabrication and measurements. X.Z., K.Z. and Z.W. carried out the material synthesis and characterization. C.A.O. and L.G.P.M. conducted low-temperature Raman measurements, under the supervision of R.C. H.X. performed DFT calculations, under the supervision of J.L. X.L. conducted the cross-sectional STEM imaging, under the supervision of Y.H. F.L. conducted additional cross-sectional STEM imaging, under the supervision of C.S. Z.W. and Y.Z. provided the CVD graphene films. S.L. conducted the cryogenic dry pick-up tests, under the supervision of P.K. T.Z. contributed to the graphic illustration. T.H.Y. and S.P. contributed to device fabrication. J.W. and Z.H. contributed to the data analysis. S.V., K.T. and S.M. prepared the Nb films. X.Z., S.Z., J.Î-j.W. and J.K. wrote the paper; all authors read and revised the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to William D. Oliver, Joel Î-j. Wang or Jing Kong.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

X.Z. and J.K. are co-inventors on a patent application (provisional filing number number 63/941,016) related to the research presented in this paper.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature thanks Xiaolong Liu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Comparison between conventional surface growth versus encapsulation epitaxy.

a-b, Schematic showing the difference between (a) conventional surface growth on 3D surface and (b) encapsulation epitaxy at 2D-3D interface. c-e, Optical image showing the growth of NbSe2 on (c) SiO2 substrate surface, (d) sapphire substrate surface, and (e) exfoliated hBN flakes on SiO2. Scale bars, 10 μm. f, Additional example showing the difference between SiO2 surface and hBN-SiO2 interface. This growth utilizes a high Nb precursor concentration, enabling the simultaneous observation of island growth on SiO2 surface (conventional surface growth) and 1L-NbSe2 growth at hBN-SiO2 interface (encapsulation epitaxy). Scale bar, 10 μm. g, AFM image measuring the thickness of the thick NbSe2 flake on SiO2 surface. Inset, optical image showing the measured location. Scale bar, 1 μm. h, Corresponding height profile of the AFM image shown in panel g (dashed white line).

Extended Data Fig. 2 Cryogenic dry pick-up test demonstrating that NbSe2 growth occurred exclusively at 2D-3D interface, with no growth observed on the exposed 2D surface.

a, Optical image showing the 1L-NbSe2 grown by encapsulation epitaxy at the hBN/SiO2 interface. b, Raman spectra of as-grown hBN/NbSe2 from panel a. c, Optical image of the same sample shown in panel a after cryogenic dry pick-up (see Methods). The NbSe2 remains on the growth substrate while the hBN flakes were lifted off, confirming that NbSe2 was grown beneath hBN at the 2D-3D interface. After removal of the hBN layer, further laser exposure will cause damage to the unprotected NbSe2 surface. The inset shows the optical image of laser-induced holes on exposed NbSe2 surface, underscoring the importance of 2D encapsulation. d, Raman spectra of the exposed NbSe2 after removal of the top hBN layers. The NbSe2 peaks are markedly weakened due to the absence of hBN encapsulation during laser exposure. The three spectra correspond to measurements taken at the positions indicated by the three crosses in panel c. e, Optical image of the hBN flake being picked up in a and transferred onto another new substrate. f, Raman spectra measuring the cross-marked location in panel e. No NbSe2 signal was detected, together with the uniform color contrast under the optical microscope image, indicating no growth happened on top of the hBN surface. Scale bars, 20 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 3 More comprehensive DFT calculations.

a-e, DFT-calculated energy along the diffusion path of NbSe2 on (a) graphene, (b) SiO2, (c) Al2O3, (d) Si3N4, and (e) HfO2. f, Calculated diffusion energy vs. adsorption energy of NbSe2 on various surfaces.

Extended Data Fig. 4 NbSe2 growth test on different substrates.

a-c, Optical images, SEM images and Raman spectra showing the NbSe2 growth result on (a) Graphene-Si3N4 substrate (b) Graphene-HfO2 substrate and (c) Graphene-Al2O3 substrate. The continuous 1L-NbSe2 is successfully grown at graphene-Si3N4 interface. But in the case of HfO2 and Al2O3, only thick NbSe2 flakes and irregular black features (no NbSe2 Raman signal) were formed. The Si3N4 was grown by PECVD, and HfO2 and Al2O3 were grown by ALD. The graphene films were then transferred on top of them. Scale bars for optical images, 20 μm. Scale bars for SEM images, 2 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Raman and XPS characterization of as-grown NbSe2.

a, Raman spectrum of as-grown hBN/NbSe2. b, Raman spectrum of as-grown graphene/NbSe2. c, Optical image showing the area of the graphene/NbSe2 sample used for Raman mapping in Fig. 1i–j. Scale bar: 10 μm. d, Raman spectra collected from the mapped area shown in c. e, XPS spectrum of as-grown graphene/NbSe2 showing Nb 3 d peaks. Two peaks at 203.4 eV and 206.3 eV correspond to Nb4+ 3d5/2 and 3d3/2 binding energies, consistent with literature values. f, XPS spectrum of as-grown graphene/NbSe2 showing Se 3d peaks. Peaks at 53.2 eV and 54.2 eV correspond to Se 3d5/2 and 3d3/2 binding energies, also in good agreement with literature16. g, XPS Survey spectrum of the graphene/NbSe2 sample.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Air-stability characterization of 1L-NbSe2 grown by encapsulation epitaxy.

a, Raman spectra comparing pristine NbSe2 with intentionally oxidized NbSe2. The disappearance of NbSe2 vibrational modes upon oxidation highlights Raman spectroscopy as an effective tool for rapid air-stability assessment. b-c, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of the same pristine and oxidized NbSe2 samples shown in a. Upon oxidation, the Nb valence changes from 4+ to 5+, and the Se signal disappears, revealing that the oxidized NbSe2 is composed of Nb2O5. Noted this Nb2O5 might be amorphous considering no Raman characteristic peak is detected. d, Raman spectra of a 1L-graphene/NbSe2 sample grown by encapsulation epitaxy during continuous exposure to ambient air. Minimal oxidation is observed, highlighting the high air-stability of NbSe2 in this work. This also provides indirect evidence that NbSe2 is grown beneath the 2D encapsulation layer, as the unencapsulated monolayer NbSe2 is expected to rapidly oxidize in air and exhibit significantly weakened or diminished Raman signals (See Extended Data Fig. 2).

Extended Data Fig. 7 More SAED characterizations of graphene/NbSe2.

a, Planar-view SEM image of graphene/NbSe2 on TEM grid, showing one of the regions that SAED was taken. Graphene is a continuous monolayer while the NbSe2 are partially grown flakes. The holes are free-standing areas. Scale bar, 5 μm. b, SAED measurements of graphene/NbSe2 taken at random locations across a 200 × 200 μm2 area. Scale bar, 5 nm−1.

Extended Data Fig. 8 Selective-area growth of NbSe2 utilizing patterned graphene.

a, Optical image of patterned graphene on SiO2 substrate. b, Optical image of NbSe2 grown underneath the patterned graphene shown in a. c-d, Raman intensity mapping images of (c) NbSe2 E12g peak and (d) graphene 2D peak. The Raman mapping was taken on the optical image shown in b. Scale bars, 10 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Growth of other high-melting-point TMDs by encapsulation epitaxy.

a, Raman spectra of as-grown graphene/NbS2, graphene/VS2, and graphene/VSe2, with the spectrum of bare graphene included as a reference. Raman peaks located around 1590 and 2680 cm−1 correspond to G and 2D vibration modes of graphene. Raman peaks at 300 and 520 cm−1 arise from the silicon substrate. b, Zoomed-in view of panel a in the range 130–450 cm–1 (the region within red dotted rectangle). The Raman peaks of graphene/NbS2 are observed at 324 and 375 cm–1, corresponding to the E2g and A1g modes of H-phase NbS262. The Raman peaks of graphene/VS2 appear at 384 and 404 cm–1, corresponding to the Eg and Ag modes of H-phase VS263. The Raman peak of graphene/VSe2 appears at 193 cm–1, corresponding to the E2g vibrational mode of H-phase VSe264. c-e, Optical images of as-grown graphene/NbS2, graphene/VS2 and graphene/VSe2, respectively. The markers on the optical images indicate the measurement positions for the Raman spectra in panel a. Scale bars, 10 μm. f, Optical image of as-grown hBN/WTe2. The marker indicates the Raman measurement location. Scale bar, 10 μm. g, Raman spectra of as-grown hBN/WTe2, with bare SiO2/Si substrate included as a reference. h, Zoomed-in view of panel g in the range 90–450 cm–1 (the region within red dotted rectangle). The Raman peaks of hBN/WTe2 are observed at 127, 157, and 218 cm–1, corresponding to the A81, A51 and A21 modes of Td-WTe265.

Extended Data Fig. 10 CDW measurement of hBN/NbSe2.

a, Temperature dependent Raman measurement (range showing vibration modes of NbSe2) with XX polarized laser on hBN/1L-NbSe2 heterostructure synthesized by encapsulation epitaxy. The curves are vertically offset for clarity. b, Color plot of the temperature dependent Raman measurement shown in a. c, Temperature dependence of the CDW amplitude mode intensity (IA) for hBN/1L-NbSe2 heterostructure. The error bars are calculated based on the standard deviation of the Raman scattering intensity around the amplitude mode peak and the spectral width employed for integrating the mode. Solid lines are fits to mean field theory7.

Supplementary information

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zheng, X., Zaman, S., Zhang, K. et al. Encapsulation epitaxy of air-stable 2D superconductors for quantum circuits. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10865-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10865-1