Glaphene: A Hybridization of 2D Silica Glass and Graphene

Abstract

Abstract 2D materials provide ideal platforms for breakthroughs in both fundamental science and practical, real‐world applications. Despite the broad diversity of 2D materials, most integration efforts have focused on homo/hetero‐structural stacking and Janus structures. In this paper, we introduce “glaphene” —a hybrid of two fundamentally different materials: 2D silica glass and graphene. We propose a metastable hybrid structure based on first‐principles calculations, synthesize it via scalable liquid precursor‐based vapor‐phase growth, and chemically validate the interlayer structure and hybridization using extensive optical and electron spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and atomic‐resolution electron microscopy. Using probe microscopy, we reveal that electronic cloud redistribution at the interface—beyond conventional van der Waals interactions—drives interlayer hybridization via a strong electronic proximity effect. By reconstructing the energy level diagram of glaphene through both theory and experiment, we show that the combination of semi‐metallic graphene (E g ≈0 eV) and insulating 2D silica glass (E g, exp ≈8.2 eV, E g, th ≈7 eV) results in a semiconducting “glaphene” (E g, exp ≈3.6 eV, E g, th ≈4 eV) formed through out‐of‐plane p z hybridization. This work paves the way for scalable, bottom‐up methodologies to bring interlayer hybridization and its emergent properties to the 2D materials toolbox.