Unexpected Properties Discovered for Potential Silicon Replacement

[Guest_Jim_*]

Before a material can really be used in devices, it is critical to understand its properties, and sometimes these properties can surprise you. Researchers at Berkeley Lab have recently examined 2D molybdenum disulfide and found that its edge properties are quite different from other materials. For most other two dimensional materials, a number of properties are determined by their one dimensional edges, but not molybdenum disulfide.

It makes sense that some properties of 2D materials, like their optical and chemical properties, are determined by their edges because that is where the processes happen. What sets molybdenum disulfide, and potentially other transition metal dichalcogenides, apart is that it is an area about 300 nm wide from the edges that determine these properties, and not the 1D edge itself. This could potentially explain why the material has not been living up to theoretical predictions of its properties. The researchers discovered this by using a Campanile probe to break through normal nanospectroscopic imaging limits.

This discovery should help open the door to new applications for molybdenum disulfide and other transition metal dichalcogenides, especially as the researchers also discovered that the amount of sulfur in the edge region affects its properties as well. Less sulfur shortens the amount of time electron-hole pairs, which are necessary for the operation of semiconductors, remain separated.

Source: Berkeley Lab

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