Highly Oriented WS<sub>2</sub> Monolayers for High-Performance Electronics.

Zhan, Li; Pei, Xudong; Tang, Jiachen; Li, Shuaixing; Li, Shuo; Li, Yuan; Li, Lintao; Wan, Changjin et al. · Adv Mater · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

2D transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) semiconductors represent the most promising channel materials for post-silicon microelectronics due to their unique structure and electronic properties. However, it remains challenging to synthesize wide-bandgap TMDCs monolayers featuring large areas and high performance simultaneously. Herein, highly oriented WS<sub>2</sub> monolayers are reproducibly synthesized through a templated growth strategy on vicinal C/A-plane sapphire wafers. Various spectroscopic characterizations confirm the high crystallographic orientation and uniformity across the entire wafers. Electronic measurements for samples transferred onto SiO<sub>2</sub>/Si substrates reveal high average field-effect mobilities of 62 and 180 cm<sup>2</sup>V<sup>-1</sup>s<sup>-1</sup> at room temperature and 8 K, respectively. On hexagonal boron nitride substrates, these mobilities increase to 94 and 473 cm<sup>2</sup>V<sup>-1</sup>s<sup>-1</sup>, respectively. A record high saturation current density of 675 µA µm<sup>-1</sup> is observed, outperforming the index required for high-density integration circuits in IRDS 2025. This work paves the way for the application of wide-bandgap TMDC monolayers in post-silicon electronics.