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Programmable graded doping for reconfigurable molybdenum ditelluride devices

Abstract

Non-volatile reconfigurable devices have the potential to improve integration levels and lower power consumption in next-generation electronics. Two-dimensional semiconductors are promising materials for making non-volatile reconfigurable devices due to their atomic thinness and strong gate control, but it is challenging to create varied reconfigurable functions with a simple device configuration. Here we show that an effective-gate-voltage-programmed graded-doping strategy can be used to create a single-gate two-dimensional molybdenum ditelluride device with multiple reconfigurable functions. The device can be programmed to function as a polarity-switchable diode, memory, in-memory Boolean logic gates and artificial synapses with homosynaptic plasticity and heterosynaptic plasticity. As a diode, the device exhibits a rectification ratio of up to 104; as an artificial heterosynapse, it shows heterosynaptic metaplasticity with a modulatory power consumption that can be reduced to 7.3 fW.

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Fig. 1: Schematic and working principle of a single-gate reconfigurable MoTe2 device.
Fig. 2: Polarity-switchable MoTe2 diodes based on EGV-pGD.
Fig. 3: Reconfigurable MoTe2 memory based on EGV-pGD.
Fig. 4: Homosynaptic plasticity in MoTe2 artificial synapse.
Fig. 5: Heterosynaptic plasticity in MoTe2 artificial synapse.

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Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Z. Wang, H. Tian and J. Tang for the helpful discussions. This work was financially supported by the Basic Science Center Project of NSFC under grant no. 52388201 (K.L.); the National Key R&D Program of China under grant nos. 2022YFA1203400 (K.L.), 2018YFA0208401 (K.L.) and 2021YFA1200800 (C.W.); and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant nos. 51972193 (K.L.), 61925402 (P.Z.), 12241404 (C.S.), 52225106 (C.S.), 62004114 (C.W.) and 62174098 (C.W.).

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

K.L. and R.P. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. R.P., Y.W., B.W. and T.P. fabricated the devices. R.P. performed the KPFM measurements. R.P., J.G. and B.Z. carried out the electrical measurements for different device functions. R.P., K.L., R.S., C.S., Z.F., C.W., P.Z. and S.F. analysed the data. R.P. and K.L. drafted the paper. All the authors contributed to the discussions and the final version of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kai Liu.

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Nature Electronics thanks Ye Zhou, Enxiu Wu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Consecutive reconfiguration of our MoTe2 devices.

a, Consecutive switches of four functions among n-p diode, n-doped state, p-doped state, and homeostatic function of heterosynaptic plasticity. The coloured background regions represent the electrical characterization process of each function and the grey regions mark the reconfiguration processes. Vd/Vg sets of 44 V/15 V, 10 V/−15 V, and 1 V/25 V are applied for the reconfiguration process of n-p diode, n-doped state, and p-doped state, respectively. Positive Vg pulses of 25 V, 0.1 s and negative Vg pulses of −25 V, 0.15 s are applied for the emulation of homeostatic function of heterosynaptic plasticity. b, Rectification ratio of n-p diode, dynamic range of homeostatic function of heterosynaptic plasticity, and channel currents of n-doped state and p-doped state of memory in repeated function switches.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Performance of reconfigurable MoTe2 device under variable environmental conditions.

a, Performance of the device under variable environmental relative humidity. The oxygen content was kept at 20%. b, Performance of the device under variable oxygen concentration. The relative humidity was kept at 10%. All of the measurements were carried out at room temperature. All data are extracted from the corresponding raw data in Supplementary Fig. 27. Rectification ratio is extracted for n-p diode function, on/off ratio for memory, and dynamic range for homeostatic function of heterosynaptic plasticity.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–35, Notes 1–12 and Tables 1–3.

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Source Data Extended Data Fig. 1

Source data for Extended Data Fig. 1.

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Peng, R., Wu, Y., Wang, B. et al. Programmable graded doping for reconfigurable molybdenum ditelluride devices. Nat Electron 6, 852–861 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-01056-1

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