In-Plane Heterostructures Enable Internal Stress Assisted Strain Engineering in 2D Materials

Conventional methods to induce strain in 2D materials can hardly catch up with the sharp increase in requirements to design specific strain forms, such as the pseudomagnetic field proposed in graphene, funnel effect of excitons in MoS2, and also the inverse funnel effect reported in black phosphorus. Therefore, a long-standing challenge in 2D materials strain engineering is to find a feasible scheme that can be used to design given strain forms. In this article, combining the ability of experimentally synthetizing in-plane heterostructures and elegant Eshelby inclusion theory, the possibility of designing strain fields in 2D materials to manipulate physical properties, which is called internal stress assisted strain engineering, is theoretically demonstrated. Particularly, through changing the inclusion's size, the stress or strain gradient can be controlled precisely, which is never achieved. By taking advantage of it, the pseudomagnetic field as well as the funnel effect can be accurately designed, which opens an avenue to practical applications for strain engineering in 2D materials.