Semiconductors articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The microscopic mechanism of the metal-insulator transition in 2D disordered semiconductors is not fully understood. Shin et al. propose a universal mechanism due to curvature-induced band gap fluctuations in a structurally disordered system, based on gate-tunable scanning tunneling microscopy on monolayer MoS2.

    • Bong Gyu Shin
    • , Ji-Hoon Park
    •  & Soon Jung Jung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many of the most sensitive X-ray detectors are based on toxic elements such as lead, limiting their safe applications. Here, the authors report the realization of sensitive X-ray detectors based on solution-grown thick BiI/BiI3/BiI van der Waals heterostructures, showing a detection limit down to 34 nGy s−1 and high stability.

    • Renzhong Zhuang
    • , Songhua Cai
    •  & Shenghuang Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charge noise degrades the performance of spin qubits hindering scalability. Here the authors engineer the heterogeneous material stack in 28Si/SiGe gate-defined quantum dots, to improve the scattering properties and to reduce charge noise.

    • Brian Paquelet Wuetz
    • , Davide Degli Esposti
    •  & Giordano Scappucci

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The origin of phonon thermal Hall Effect in a variety of insulators is elusive. Here, the authors find that black phosphorus hosts the largest thermal Hall conductivity ever reported and the Hall angle does not correlate with the phonon mean-free path.

    • Xiaokang Li
    • , Yo Machida
    •  & Kamran Behnia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin defects in 2D hBN are promising for magnetic field sensing but suffer from short spin coherence times. Here the authors extend the coherence time for an ensemble of spins in hBN to 4 microseconds by using a continuous microwave drive and demonstrate qubit control in a protected spin space.

    • Andrew J. Ramsay
    • , Reza Hekmati
    •  & Isaac J. Luxmoore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron optics draws upon the resemblance between electron and optical waves. Here, the authors report on the observation of electron mode formation in open cavity resonators realized in a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electronic gas.

    • Hwanchul Jung
    • , Dongsung T. Park
    •  & Hyung Kook Choi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum-dot spin qubits in Si/SiGe quantum wells require a large and uniform valley splitting for robust operation and scalability. Here the authors introduce and characterize a new heterostructure with periodic oscillations of Ge atoms in the quantum well, which could enhance the valley splitting.

    • Thomas McJunkin
    • , Benjamin Harpt
    •  & M. A. Eriksson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin qubits in Si/SiGe quantum dots suffer from variability in the valley splitting which will hinder device scalability. Here, by using 3D atomic characterization, the authors explain this variability by random Si and Ge atomic fluctuations and propose a strategy to statistically enhance the valley splitting

    • Brian Paquelet Wuetz
    • , Merritt P. Losert
    •  & Giordano Scappucci

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recently demonstrated approaches to fabrication of quantum emitters in silicon result in their random positioning, hindering applications in quantum photonic integrated circuits. Here the authors demonstrate controlled fabrication of telecom-wavelength quantum emitters in silicon wafers by focused ion beams.

    • Michael Hollenbach
    • , Nico Klingner
    •  & Georgy V. Astakhov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is still challenging to discover plastically deformable inorganic semiconductors. Here, the authors report a high-throughput screening of tens of potential 2D van der Waals crystals that can deform plastically accompanied with experimental verification.

    • Zhiqiang Gao
    • , Tian-Ran Wei
    •  & Xun Shi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High thermal conductivity electronic materials are critical for next-generation electronics and photonics. Here, the authors report isotropic high thermal conductivity of 3C-SiC wafers exceeding 500 W m−1K−1.

    • Zhe Cheng
    • , Jianbo Liang
    •  & David G. Cahill

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent experiments on a WSe2/WS2 hetero-bilayer detected incompressible charge ordered states considered to be generalized Wigner crystals. Here, by performing Monte Carlo simulations of a triangular moiré lattice, the authors study the phases which emerge on melting such charge-ordered states in partially filled moiré bands, finding two distinct nematic states and a hexagonal domain wall state.

    • Michael Matty
    •  & Eun-Ah Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetoresistance, where the electric resistance of a material changes under an applied magnetic field, is typically an even function of the applied magnetic field, due to the combination of time reversal and spatial inversion symmetries. Here, Takiguchi et al show an odd-parity magnetoresistance of remarkable size in edge channels of a semiconductor quantum well.

    • Kosuke Takiguchi
    • , Le Duc Anh
    •  & Masaaki Tanaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many complex devices rely on epitaxial growth with high crystallinity and accurate composition. Here authors report epitaxial growth of Ge on deep etched porous Si pillars to provide a fully compliant substrate enabling elastic relaxation of defect free Ge microcrystals.

    • Alexandre Heintz
    • , Bouraoui Ilahi
    •  & Abderraouf Boucherif

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The application of electric fields >1 V/nm in solid state devices could provide access to unexplored phenomena, but it is currently difficult to implement. Here, the authors develop a double-sided ionic liquid gating technique to generate electric fields as large as 4 V/nm across few-layer WSe2, leading to field-induced semiconductor-to-metal transitions.

    • Benjamin I. Weintrub
    • , Yu-Ling Hsieh
    •  & Kirill I. Bolotin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report the observation of room temperature excitons in a single layer of bismuth atoms epitaxially grown on a SiC substrate - a material of non-trivial global topology - with excitonic and topological physics deriving from the very same electronic structure.

    • Marcin Syperek
    • , Raul Stühler
    •  & Christian Schneider

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Slow light effects are interesting for telecommunications and quantum photonics applications. Here, the authors use coupled exciton-surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a hybrid monolayer WSe2-metallic waveguide structure to demonstrate a 1300-fold reduction of the SPP group velocity.

    • Matthew Klein
    • , Rolf Binder
    •  & John R. Schaibley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors investigate the interactions between Fermi polarons in monolayer WS2 by multi-dimensional coherent spectroscopy, and find that, at low electron doping densities, the dominant interactions are between polaron states that are dressed by the same Fermi sea. They also observe a bipolaron bound state with large binding energy, involving excitons in different valleys cooperatively bound to the same electron.

    • Jack B. Muir
    • , Jesper Levinsen
    •  & Jeffrey A. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors use quantitative ultrafast interferometric pump-probe microscopy to track photoexcitations with sub-10 nm spatial precision in three dimensions and 15 fs temporal resolution to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of singlet exciton fission in polycrystalline pentacene films.

    • Arjun Ashoka
    • , Nicolas Gauriot
    •  & Akshay Rao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A coherent quantum link between distant quantum processors is desirable for scaling up of quantum computation. Noiri et al. demonstrate a strategy to link distant quantum processors in silicon, by implementing a shuttling-based two-qubit gate between spin qubits in a Si/SiGe triple quantum dot.

    • Akito Noiri
    • , Kenta Takeda
    •  & Seigo Tarucha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bose-Einstein condensate of excitons is expected in photo-excited bulk semiconductors, but a direct experimental evidence has been lacking. Here the authors report the observation of a condensate of 1s paraexcitons in Cu2O using real-space mid-infrared absorption imaging realized in a dilution refrigerator.

    • Yusuke Morita
    • , Kosuke Yoshioka
    •  & Makoto Kuwata-Gonokami

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin qubits are a platform for quantum computing. There are many advantages for quantum information processing if the spin qubit can move. Here, Helgers et al. use a surface acoustic wave to define a moving quantum dot and demonstrate the magneticfield-free control of the spin precession, bringing “flying” spin qubits a step closer.

    • Paul L. J. Helgers
    • , James A. H. Stotz
    •  & Paulo V. Santos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors investigate excitonic transitions in mono- and multi-layer WSe2 and MoSe2 by time-resolved Faraday ellipticity (TRFE) with in-plane magnetic fields, and attribute the oscillatory TRFE signal in the multilayer samples to pseudospin quantum beats of excitons, a manifestation of spin- and pseudospin layer locking.

    • Simon Raiber
    • , Paulo E. Faria Junior
    •  & Christian Schüller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transistors with inorganic semiconductors have superior performance than organics. However, they are brittle and thus unfavorable for building deformable electronics. Here, authors directly embed such inorganic thin film transistors into serpentine strings to realize highly stretchable and miniaturized electronic circuits.

    • Himchan Oh
    • , Ji-Young Oh
    •  & Chi-Sun Hwang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Small variations in the density of dopants change the physical properties of complex oxides. Here, the authors resolve doping levels in three dimension, imaging the atomic sites that donors occupy in the small band gap semiconductor Er(Mn,Ti)O3.

    • K. A. Hunnestad
    • , C. Hatzoglou
    •  & D. Meier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been predicted that longitudinal coupling between a qubit and a superconducting resonator can mediate efficient interactions among distant qubits. Here the authors implement such a coupling between a singlet-triplet qubit in a semiconductor double quantum dot and a high-impedance superconducting resonator.

    • C. G. L. Bøttcher
    • , S. P. Harvey
    •  & A. Yacoby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Wigner-Mott insulator is driven by extended Coulomb repulsion, rather than the on-site Coulomb repulsion of the Mott insulator. Here, the authors observe a continuous bandwidth-tuned transition between a metal and a Wigner-Mott insulator in a MoSe2/WS2 moiré superlattice at fractional lattice filling.

    • Yanhao Tang
    • , Jie Gu
    •  & Jie Shan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Remote epitaxy represents a promising method for the synthesis of thin films on lattice-mismatched substrates, but its atomic-scale mechanisms are still unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate the growth of exfoliatable GaSb films on graphene-terminated GaSb (001) via seeded lateral epitaxy, showing that pinhole defects in graphene serve as selective nucleation sites.

    • Sebastian Manzo
    • , Patrick J. Strohbeen
    •  & Jason K. Kawasaki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Materials with time reversal and inversion symmetry have a bulk band structure that is spin degenerate, however, they can still exhibit a hidden spin-polarization when probed in a specific way. Here, using angle and spin resolved photoemission, Clark et al reveal a hidden spin-polarization in 1T-HfSe2 that persists through the time reversal invariant momenta due to effective spin-orbital magnetisations

    • Oliver J. Clark
    • , Oliver Dowinton
    •  & Jaime Sánchez-Barriga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hybrid quantum devices based on coupled nuclear and electron spins offer promising applications, but require long nuclear spin coherence times. Here the authors demonstrate millisecond coherence times for a nuclear spin ensemble coupled to a single electron spin qubit in a semiconductor quantum dot.

    • George Gillard
    • , Edmund Clarke
    •  & Evgeny A. Chekhovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report the realization of light-emitting field-effect transistors based on van der Waals heterostructures with conduction and valence band edges at the Γ-point of the Brillouin zone, showing electrically tunable and material-dependent electroluminescence spectra at room temperature.

    • Hugo Henck
    • , Diego Mauro
    •  & Alberto F. Morpurgo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Andersen et al. have demonstrated a new type of beam steering device based on the excitonic response of an atomically thin semiconductor. Using electrostatic gates, the authors achieved tunable steering with switching times on the nanosecond scale.

    • Trond I. Andersen
    • , Ryan J. Gelly
    •  & Mikhail D. Lukin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spintronic devices will require long spin lifetimes, but the effect of exciton-lattice coupling on spin lifetime in metal-halide perovskites is not well understood. Here, the authors find a 100-fold increase in the lifetime of exciton spins in a 2D perovskite by exciting with excess energy, resulting from strong coupling between excitons and optically excited phonons.

    • Sean A. Bourelle
    • , Franco V. A. Camargo
    •  & Felix Deschler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors show brightening of dark excitons by strong coupling between cavity photons and high energy, spin-allowed, bright excitons in monolayer WSe2. In this regime, the commonly observed photoluminescence quenching stemming from the fast relaxation to the dark ground state is prevented.

    • Hangyong Shan
    • , Ivan Iorsh
    •  & Christian Schneider

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nucleation control of self-assembled quantum dots is challenging. Here, the authors employ conventional molecular beam epitaxy to achieve wafer-scale density modulation of high-quality quantum dots with tunable periodicity on unpatterned substrates.

    • N. Bart
    • , C. Dangel
    •  & A. Ludwig

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Graphene and related two-dimensional (2D) materials have remained an active field of research in science and engineering for over fifteen years. Here, the authors investigate why the transition from laboratories to fabrication plants appears to lag behind expectations, and summarize the main challenges and opportunities that have thus far prevented the commercialisation of these materials.

    • Max C. Lemme
    • , Deji Akinwande
    •  & Christoph Stampfer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Excitons in 2D semiconductors suffer from a weak response to in-plane electric fields, inhibiting their transport beyond the diffusion length. Here, the authors demonstrate the directional, long-range transport of interlayer excitons in bilayer WSe2 driven by the propagating potential traps induced by surface acoustic waves.

    • Ruoming Peng
    • , Adina Ripin
    •  & Mo Li

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