Approaches to stack monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) materials to develop near-perfect light absorbers (NPLAs) with only two atomic layers of TMD. Stacking TMDs may result in interlayer coupling with undesirable light absorbing behavior. The NPLAs of this disclosure stacks monolayer TMDs in such a way as to minimize TMD interlayer coupling, thus preserving TMD strong band nesting properties. Examples of approaches in this disclosure control the interlayer coupling by, for example, (a) twisted TMD bi-layers and (b) adding a buffer layer, e.g., a TMD/buffer layer/TMD tri-layer heterostructure. The NPLAs of this disclosure use the band nesting effect in TMDs, combined with a Salisbury screen geometry, to demonstrate NPLAs using only two or three uniform atomic layers of TMDs.