Transferred Polymer‐Encapsulated Metal Electrodes for Electrical Transport Measurements on Ultrathin Air‐Sensitive Crystals

Abstract Owing to rapid property degradation after ambient exposure and incompatibility with conventional device fabrication process, electrical transport measurements on air‐sensitive 2D materials have always been a big issue. Here, for the first time, a facile one‐step polymer‐encapsulated electrode transfer (PEET) method applicable for fragile 2D materials is developed, which showed great advantages of damage‐free electrodes patterning and in situ polymer encapsulation preventing from H2O/O2 exposure during the whole electrical measurements process. The ultrathin SmTe2 metals grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are chosen as the prototypical air‐sensitive 2D crystals for their poor air‐stability, which will become highly insulating when fabricated by conventional lithographic techniques. Nevertheless, the intrinsic electrical properties of CVD‐grown SmTe2 nanosheets can be readily investigated by the PEET method instead, showing ultralow contact resistance and high signal/noise ratio. The PEET method can be applicable to other fragile ultrathin magnetic materials, such as (Mn,Cr)Te, to investigate their intrinsic electrical/magnetic properties.