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Single-crystalline van der Waals layered dielectric with high dielectric constant

Nature Materials (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The scaling of silicon-based transistors at sub-ten-nanometre technology nodes faces challenges such as interface imperfection and gate current leakage for an ultrathin silicon channel1,2. For next-generation nanoelectronics, high-mobility two-dimensional (2D) layered semiconductors with an atomic thickness and dangling-bond-free surfaces are expected as channel materials to achieve smaller channel sizes, less interfacial scattering and more efficient gate-field penetration1,2. However, further progress towards 2D electronics is hindered by factors such as the lack of a high dielectric constant (κ) dielectric with an atomically flat and dangling-bond-free surface3,4. Here, we report a facile synthesis of a single-crystalline high-κ (κ of roughly 16.5) van der Waals layered dielectric Bi2SeO5. The centimetre-scale single crystal of Bi2SeO5 can be efficiently exfoliated to an atomically flat nanosheet as large as 250 × 200 μm2 and as thin as monolayer. With these Bi2SeO5 nanosheets as dielectric and encapsulation layers, 2D materials such as Bi2O2Se, MoS2 and graphene show improved electronic performances. For example, in 2D Bi2O2Se, the quantum Hall effect is observed and the carrier mobility reaches 470,000 cm2 V−1 s−1 at 1.8 K. Our finding expands the realm of dielectric and opens up a new possibility for lowering the gate voltage and power consumption in 2D electronics and integrated circuits.

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Fig. 1: Structure and characterization of vdW layered Bi2SeO5 single crystals.
Fig. 2: Exfoliation and characterization of vdW layered Bi2SeO5 nanosheets.
Fig. 3: Dielectric properties of vdW layered Bi2SeO5.
Fig. 4: Transport properties of 2D Bi2O2Se encapsulated with Bi2SeO5 nanosheets.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

All computational data are presented in the paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 21920102004, 52021006, T2188101, 52072043, 92164205, 22205011, 21733001 and 22105009), Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (grant no. BNLMS-CXTD-202001), the Tencent Foundation (XPLORER PRIZE), National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2020YFA0308900), Molecular Materials and Nanofabrication Laboratory in the College of Chemistry at the Peking University, and the Electron Microscopy Laboratory of the Peking University. P.G. acknowledges support from National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFA0708200) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 52125307, 11974023 and 52021006). H.F. and B.Y. acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 12104072). Numerical computations were performed on Hefei Advanced Computing Center. J. Yu and K.L. acknowledge support from the Welch Foundation grant F-1814.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Congcong Zhang, Teng Tu, Jingyue Wang, Yongchao Zhu, Jianbo Yin.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nanochemistry, Beijing Science and Engineering Center for Nanocarbons, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Congcong Zhang, Teng Tu, Jingyue Wang, Yongchao Zhu, Congwei Tan, Yichi Zhang, Xuzhong Cong, Xuehan Zhou, Tianran Li, Hongtao Liu & Hailin Peng

  2. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China

    Yongchao Zhu, Hai Xu & Huiping Hu

  3. School of Integrated Circuits, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Liang Chen & Qianqian Huang

  4. Electron Microscopy Laboratory, School of Physics and International Center for Quantum Materials, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Mei Wu, Ruixue Zhu & Peng Gao

  5. Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Yizhou Liu, Huixia Fu & Binghai Yan

  6. College of Physics and Center for Quantum Materials and Devices, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Huixia Fu

  7. Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Jia Yu & Keji Lai

  8. State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Jiaji Zhao, Zhimin Liao & Xiaosong Wu

  9. School of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Jianbo Yin

  10. Beijing Graphene Institute, Beijing, China

    Jianbo Yin & Hailin Peng

Authors
  1. Congcong Zhang
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Contributions

H.P. conceived the original idea for the project. C.Z. and T.T. carried out the synthesis and structural characterization of the bulk and 2D crystals. The devices were fabricated by C.Z., J.W., Y. Zhu, Y. Zhang, X.C., X.Z. and measured by J.W. and L.C., with C.T.’s and Q.H.’s help. J. Yin and J.W. analysed the data of transport measurements. C.Z., Y. Zhu and J.Z. carried out the transfer procedure with X.W.’s and Z.L.’s help. H.F., Y.L. and B.Y. carried out the theoretical calculations. J. Yu and K.L. performed the MIM measurements. The STEM measurements were performed by M.W. and R.Z. under the direction of P.G. The manuscript was written by H.P., C.Z., J. Yin, T.T. and J.W. with input from the other authors. T.L., Q.H., H.X., H.H. and H.L. provided suggestions to the manuscript. All work was supervised by H.P. All authors contributed to the scientific planning and discussions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hailin Peng.

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Nature Materials thanks Takhee Lee and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–20, Tables 1 and 2 and Discussion S1–S9.

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Zhang, C., Tu, T., Wang, J. et al. Single-crystalline van der Waals layered dielectric with high dielectric constant. Nat. Mater. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01502-7

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