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2D crystal semiconductors

Intimate contacts

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 1076–1078 (2014)Cite this article

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High electrical contact resistance had stalled the promised performance of two-dimensional layered devices. Low-resistance metal–semiconductor contacts are now obtained by interfacing semiconducting MoS2 layers with the metallic phase of this material.

Transistors and lasers made of semiconductor materials power the information age by providing the building blocks for electronic switching, amplification and photonic communication. The electronic and photonic properties of the semiconductor play a primary role in determining the performance of such devices, yet comparable importance resides in the way this material interfaces with the external metallic circuits. A high electrical resistance due to a high energy barrier — the Schottky barrier — encountered by the charge carriers moving through the metal–semiconductor contacts saps the energy efficiency, and significantly degrades the performance of the device.

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Figure 1: Contact resistances for various semiconductor materials against the quantum limits for crystalline materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Depdeep Jena and Grace Huili Xing are in the Department of Electrical Engineering, and in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA, Cornell University, New York 14853, USA,

    Grace Huili Xing

  2. Kaustav Banerjee is in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA,

    Kaustav Banerjee

  3. Debdeep Jena

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  1. Debdeep Jena
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  2. Kaustav Banerjee
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  3. Grace Huili Xing
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Correspondence to Debdeep Jena.

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Jena, D., Banerjee, K. & Xing, G. Intimate contacts. Nature Mater 13, 1076–1078 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4121

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