Chipmakers Look To New Materials

#Graphene, the wonder material rediscovered in 2004, and a host of other two-dimensional materials are gaining ground in manufacturing #semiconductors as silicon’s usefulness begins to fade. And while there are a number of compounds in use already, such as #galliumarsenide, #galliumnitride, and #siliconcarbide, those materials generally are being confined to specific niche applications. #Transitionmetaldichalcogenides ( #TMDCs), a class of 2D materials derived from basic elements—principally #tellurium, #selenium, #sulfur, and #oxygen—are being widely explored by researchers for their use as semiconducting materials. These include molybdenum disulfide (MOS2), molybdenum diselenide (MOSe2), molybdenum ditelluride and molybdenum telluride (MOTe2), tungsten disulfide (WS2), and tungsten diselenide (WSe2), which are among the materials being tested for use in chips. TMDCs are functioning as semiconductors in conjunction with graphene (a carbon allotrope) as an electrical conductor, and monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (also known as white graphene) as an electrical insulator. These materials can be used in electronic devices, energy and harvesting devices, and for flexible and transparent substrates. TMDCs are also being combined with silicon substrates, to give good old silicon a few more years to shine. And 2D materials can be printed on paper substrates, opening up a whole new field of paper-based devices, such as sensors. Monolayer graphene is highly conductive – overly so. The 2D carbon material has no bandgap, however, limiting its use in integrated circuits. Bilayer graphene, in contast, can be tuned to have a bandgap. Bilayer graphene films on silicon carbide can be better controlled, researchers have found. Trilayer graphene can also be tunable to produce a bandgap, needed to develop field-effect transistors in a semiconductor device

https://semiengineering.com/chipmakers-look-to-new-materials/