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Two-dimensional non-volatile programmable p–n junctions

Nature Nanotechnology volume 12, pages 901–906 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Semiconductor p–n junctions are the elementary building blocks of most electronic and optoelectronic devices. The need for their miniaturization has fuelled the rapid growth of interest in two-dimensional (2D) materials. However, the performance of a p–n junction considerably degrades as its thickness approaches a few nanometres and traditional technologies, such as doping and implantation, become invalid at the nanoscale. Here we report stable non-volatile programmable p–n junctions fabricated from the vertically stacked all-2D semiconductor/insulator/metal layers (WSe2/hexagonal boron nitride/graphene) in a semifloating gate field-effect transistor configuration. The junction exhibits a good rectifying behaviour with a rectification ratio of 104 and photovoltaic properties with a power conversion efficiency up to 4.1% under a 6.8 nW light. Based on the non-volatile programmable properties controlled by gate voltages, the 2D p–n junctions have been exploited for various electronic and optoelectronic applications, such as memories, photovoltaics, logic rectifiers and logic optoelectronic circuits.

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Figure 1: Stacked WSe2/h-BN/graphene van der Waals heterostructures for SFG-FETs.
Figure 2: Non-volatile WSe2 p–n junctions achieved in the WSe2/h-BN/graphene device.
Figure 3: WSe2/h-BN/graphene device for non-volatile p–n junction memories and logic rectifiers.
Figure 4: WSe2/h-BN/graphene device for photovoltaics and non-volatile photovoltaic memories.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (16ZR1439400, 17ZR1447700), National Natural Science Foundation of China (11104204, 21301032), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFA0203900), the Singapore National Research Foundation under NRF RF Award No. NRF-RF2013-08, the financial support from MOE under AcRF Tier 2 MOE2015-T2-2-007, was also partly supported through the BRI program, ‘Science and Emerging Technology of 2D Atomic Layered Materials and Devices’, funded by the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Grant No. BAA-AFOSR-2013-0001. The authors thank B. Li and X. Xu for the device fabrication and AFM characterization and N. Xuanyuan for the Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) measurement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Special Artificial Microstructure Materials and Technology, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Dong Li, Mingyuan Chen & Zengxing Zhang

  2. Department of Chemistry and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Zhengzong Sun

  3. Centre for Programmed Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Peng Yu & Zheng Liu

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, Houston, 77005, Texas, USA

    Pulickel M. Ajayan

  5. The Institute of Dongguan-Tongji University, Dongguan, 523808, China

    Zengxing Zhang

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  1. Dong Li
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Contributions

Z.Z. and D.L. conceived and designed the project. D.L. performed the device fabrication and properties characterization. M.C. carried out the AFM and Raman measurements. P.Y. contributed the WSe1.2Te0.8 crystals. Z.Z., Z.L. and P.M.A. supervised the experiment. Z.Z., D.L., Z.S., Z.L. and P.M.A. co-wrote the paper. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zheng Liu, Pulickel M. Ajayan or Zengxing Zhang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Li, D., Chen, M., Sun, Z. et al. Two-dimensional non-volatile programmable p–n junctions. Nature Nanotech 12, 901–906 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2017.104

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