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A wafer-scale van der Waals dielectric made from an inorganic molecular crystal film

Nature Electronics volume 4, pages 906–913 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Van der Waals dielectrics, such as hexagonal boron nitride, are widely used to preserve the intrinsic properties of two-dimensional semiconductors in electronic devices. However, fabricating these materials on the wafer scale and integrating them with two-dimensional semiconductors is challenging because their synthesis typically requires mechanical exfoliation or vapour deposition processes. Here we show that a high-κ van der Waals dielectric can be created on wafer scales using an inorganic molecular crystal film of antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) fabricated via thermal evaporation deposition. Monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field-effect transistors supported by this dielectric substrate exhibit enhanced electron mobility—from 26 cm2 V−1 s−1 to 145 cm2 V−1 s−1—and reduced transfer-curve hysteresis compared with when using SiO2 substrate. MoS2 transistors directly gated by the Sb2O3 film can operate with a supply voltage of 0.8 V, on/off ratio of 108 and subthreshold swing of 64 mV dec−1 at 300 K.

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Fig. 1: Fabrication of a wafer-scale Sb2O3 film via STED.
Fig. 2: Dielectric properties of Sb2O3 film.
Fig. 3: MoS2 FET supported by vdW Sb2O3 substrate.
Fig. 4: Hysteresis of MoS2 FETs supported on Sb2O3 and SiO2 substrates.
Fig. 5: Top-gated MoS2 FETs using Sb2O3 as the gate dielectric.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other finding of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (21825103, 51727809 and 11904154), the Hubei Provincial Nature Science Foundation of China (2019CFA002) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019kfyXMBZ018). We also acknowledge the Analytical and Testing Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology for the TEM characterizations and analysis. Computational time is partially supported by the Center for Computational Science and Engineering of Southern University of Science and Technology. We thank X. Shi (Hebei University) and B. Deng (Shenzhen JL Computational Science and Applied Research Institute) for the fruitful discussions about the theoretical calculations. We also appreciate the inspiring discussions with S. Hu and Y. Cao (Xiamen University).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die and Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Kailang Liu, Bao Jin, Wei Han, Yinghe Zhao, Sanjun Yang, Junyuan Duan, Lixin Liu, Fakun Wang, Fuwei Zhuge & Tianyou Zhai

  2. Nano and Heterogeneous Materials Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

    Xiang Chen

  3. Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Penglai Gong & Li Huang

  4. Key Laboratory of Optic-Electronic Information and Materials of Hebei Province, Institute of Life Science and Green Development, College of Physics Science and Technology, Hebei University, Baoding, China

    Penglai Gong

  5. Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei, China

    Liang Li

  6. Green Catalysis Center, College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China

    Xiaozong Hu

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  1. Kailang Liu
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Contributions

K.L. and T.Z. conceived the ideas. K.L. and B.J. designed and carried out most of the experiments under T.Z.’s supervision. K.L., B.J. and X.H. deposited the film. K.L. and J.D. performed the measurement of the absorption spectrum. P.G. and L.H. carried out the first-principles calculations. X.C., L. Li., S.Y. and F.Z. helped to analyse the data. K.L., W.H., L. Liu. and T.Z. worked on the images with assistance from all the others. K.L. wrote the paper with inputs from all the authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tianyou Zhai.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Electronics thanks Yury Illarionov and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–23 and Tables 1–5.

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Liu, K., Jin, B., Han, W. et al. A wafer-scale van der Waals dielectric made from an inorganic molecular crystal film. Nat Electron 4, 906–913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00683-w

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