Researchers work out how to control 2D semiconductor growth for future chips

Korean boffins use oxygen to stop crystals forming in the wrong places, aiming to get tech to commercial sector by 2030.

The short version

• The paper, " Spatially deterministic nucleation of 2D semiconductors by etching flux ," was authored by a team including researchers at KAIST and South Korean startup TDS Innovation and published on October 7.
• The technique uses an etching flux to suppress the formation of new crystals everywhere within each patterned growth region except at its geometric center.
• Two-dimensional materials are atomically thin rather than literally two-dimensional.

What happened

Graphene, perhaps the best-known example, is a single layer of carbon atoms, but its lack of an intrinsic band gap makes it unsuitable for conventional switching transistors. Monolayers of some transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), do have a band gap and are being investigated as materials for future transistors and other nanoscale devices.

Why it matters

When grown on a wafer, however, 2D semiconductor crystals typically start forming at random points, or "nucleation events occur stochastically at random sites within the growth region," as the paper puts it.

Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at The Register — Networks via the links above and below.