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The interlayer coupling, which has a strong influence on the properties of van der Waals heterostructures, strongly depends on the interlayer distance. Although considerable theoretical interest has been demonstrated, experiments exploiting a variable interlayer coupling on nanocircuits are scarce due to the experimental difficulties. Here, we demonstrate a novel method to tune the interlayer coupling using hydrostatic pressure by incorporating van der Waals heterostructure based nanocircuits in piston-cylinder hydrostatic pressure cells with a dedicated sample holder design. This technique opens the way to conduct transport measurements on nanodevices under pressure using up to 12 contacts without constraints on the sample at the fabrication level. Using transport measurements, we demonstrate that a hexagonal boron nitride capping layer provides a good protection of van der Waals heterostructures from the influence of the pressure medium, and we show experimental evidence of the influence of pressure on the interlayer coupling using weak localization measurements on a transitional metal dichalcogenide/graphene heterostructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Van der Waals heterostructures composed of multiple few layer crystals allow the engineering of novel materials with predefined properties. As an example, coupling graphene weakly to materials with large spin–orbit coupling (SOC) allows to engineer a sizeable SOC in graphene via proximity effects. The strength of the proximity effect depends on the overlap of the atomic orbitals, therefore, changing the interlayer distance via hydrostatic pressure can be utilized to enhance the interlayer coupling between the layers. In this work, we report measurements on a graphene/WSe2 heterostructure exposed to increasing hydrostatic pressure. A clear transition from weak localization to weak antilocalization is visible as the pressure increases, demonstrating the increase of induced SOC in graphene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a method to establish inner point contacts with dimensions as small as 100?nm on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) encapsulated graphene heterostructures by pre-patterning the top-hBN in a separate step prior to dry-stacking. 2- and 4-terminal field effect measurements between different lead combinations are in qualitative agreement with an electrostatic model assuming point-like contacts. The measured contact resistances are 0.5-1.5?kΩ per contact, which is quite low for such small contacts. By applying a perpendicular magnetic field, an insulating behaviour in the quantum Hall regime was observed, as expected for inner contacts. The fabricated contacts are compatible with high mobility graphene structures and open up the field for the realization of several electron optical proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]