Semiconductors articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Black phosphorus is an atomically thin material that exhibits excellent properties for electronics applications, but these degrade in atmospheric conditions. Here, the authors demonstrate the fabrication of stable, ultra-clean and high-mobility black phosphorus sandwiched between the layers of boron nitride.

    • Xiaolong Chen
    • , Yingying Wu
    •  & Ning Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Natural dispersion forces acting between molecules and particles arise from electromagnetic fields generated by quantum and thermal fluctuations. Here, Brügger et al.show that isotropic dispersion forces between colloidal particles can be induced, controlled and tuned with artificial, fluctuating laser light fields.

    • Georges Brügger
    • , Luis S. Froufe-Pérez
    •  & Juan José Sáenz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Periodically strained monolayer molybdenum disulphide funnels photogenerated electron-hole pairs across an electric field induced by a spatially graded band gap, mimicking a crystal of artificial atoms. Here, the authors experimentally demonstrate the artificial crystal in strain-textured molybdenum disulphide.

    • Hong Li
    • , Alex W. Contryman
    •  & Xiaolin Zheng

  • Article |

    Graphene forms low-resistance tunnel barriers for spin injection from a ferromagnet into silicon. Here, the authors fabricate silicon nanowire non-local spin valves with graphene tunnel barriers, evidencing spin accumulation and transport via Hanle spin precession measurements.

    • O. M. J. van ’t Erve
    • , A. L. Friedman
    •  & B. T. Jonker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the emerging field of valleytronics, the valley degree of freedom of electrons is exploited in addition to charge and spin for novel functionalities. Here, Renard et al.show how valley polarization can facilitate spin-polarization in a silicon-on-insulator quantum well.

    • V. T. Renard
    • , B. A. Piot
    •  & K. Takashina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lead-halide perovskite compounds have seen a considerable interest for their optoelectronic properties. Here, the authors discover a ferroelectric halide perovskite compound as an alternative pathway towards designing semiconductor ferroelectrics.

    • Wei-Qiang Liao
    • , Yi Zhang
    •  & Ren-Gen Xiong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Engineering strain in semiconductor structures provides additional control over the optical and electronic properties, which is promising for device applications. Fluegel et al. show that electronic Raman scattering provides a route to sensitively measure the degree of strain in thin semiconductor layers.

    • Brian Fluegel
    • , Aleksej V. Mialitsin
    •  & Angelo Mascarenhas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pressure causes profound changes in the properties of atoms and chemical bonding leading to unusual materials. Here, the authors investigate the Ca-C system and find that it becomes increasingly complex and develops a multitude of phases with various compositions and new structures at higher pressures.

    • Yan-Ling Li
    • , Sheng-Nan Wang
    •  & Timothy A. Strobel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Building flexible electronic devices demands an understanding of how mechanical deformation affects the active materials. Here, the authors observe and quantify the effects of local strains generated by the wrinkling instability in the conducting channel of rubrene crystal thin-film transistors.

    • Marcos A. Reyes-Martinez
    • , Alfred J. Crosby
    •  & Alejandro L. Briseno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interactions between weakly coupled pairs of electron spins are thought to play a role in biological magnetoreception and spin-dependent carrier dynamics in semiconductors. Here, the authors investigate such intrapair dipolar and exchange interactions in a polymer using electrically detected magnetic resonance experiments.

    • Kipp J. van Schooten
    • , Douglas L. Baird
    •  & Christoph Boehme

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carrier injection from a metallic electrode into an oxide insulator component is made difficult by the large energy level offset between the two. Here, the authors show that an intermediary zinc-oxide layer enables an Ohmic electrical contact between a metal and an oxide insulator layer.

    • Eungkyu Lee
    • , Jinwon Lee
    •  & Youn Sang Kim

  • Article |

    Ultrathin black phosphorus is a two-dimensional semiconductor with a finite band gap, unlike graphene, but it is known to degrade upon exposure to air. Here, the authors show that passivating few-layer samples of this material in an inert gas environment greatly improves the n-type charge transport.

    • Rostislav A. Doganov
    • , Eoin C. T. O’Farrell
    •  & Barbaros Özyilmaz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polycrystalline thin films of small molecules hold promise for organic thin-film transistors because of their large charge mobility, but are currently limited by poor film homogeneity and thermal durability. Here, Iino et al. design an ordered liquid crystal phase to overcome these two problems.

    • Hiroaki Iino
    • , Takayuki Usui
    •  & Jun-ichi Hanna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Defects in a crystalline solid can have a dramatic effect on the material’s properties. Here, the authors demonstrate a class of defects in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides mediated by chalcogen vacancies and inherently related to the crystal symmetry

    • Yung-Chang Lin
    • , Torbjörn Björkman
    •  & Kazu Suenaga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous studies have predicted that carbyne (a single chain of sp1carbon atoms) goes from being metallic to semiconducting under strain. Here, the authors measure the electronic properties of carbyne, confirming the prediction and showing that the conductivity is determined by strain and by the contacts.

    • A. La Torre
    • , A. Botello-Mendez
    •  & F. Banhart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aligned, one-dimensional, single-crystal materials may allow on-demand photon/electron transfer. Here, the authors use a physical vapour transport technique to grow organic single-crystal wires with the guidance of pillar-structured substrates, and perform proof of concept waveguide experiments.

    • Yuchen Wu
    • , Jiangang Feng
    •  & Lei Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrons sitting in quantum wells at the interface between two oxides can localize in the disordered potential, completely changing their properties. Here, the authors observe unexpectedly large thermopower that oscillates upon carrier density modulation and ascribe it to strong electron-phonon coupling.

    • Ilaria Pallecchi
    • , Francesca Telesio
    •  & Daniele Marré

  • Article |

    The development of improved DNA sequencing technologies relies on the ability to distinguish each of the four DNA nucleobases separately. Here, the authors fabricate a graphene field-effect transistor able to experimentally observe individual DNA nucleobases.

    • Nikolai Dontschuk
    • , Alastair Stacey
    •  & Jiri Cervenka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrolyte gating enables the accumulation of large carrier densities in two-dimensional electron systems. Here, the authors demonstrate that a few-atom thick layer of hexagonal boron nitride can dramatically improve carrier mobility in an electrolyte-gated system by limiting chemical reactions and disorder.

    • Patrick Gallagher
    • , Menyoung Lee
    •  & David Goldhaber-Gordon

  • Article |

    Heat flow in nanoscale structures varies dramatically from that in bulk materials. Here, the authors use density-functional perturbation theory and the Boltzmann transport equation to study heat conductivity in two dimensions, with applications to graphene, boron nitride, molybdenum disulphide, graphane and fluorographene.

    • Andrea Cepellotti
    • , Giorgia Fugallo
    •  & Nicola Marzari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spin dynamics at organic donor–acceptor junctions is critical in determining charge generation and recombination in devices, but the detail is still unclear. Here, Dimitrov et al. observe singlet–triplet spin mixing at nanosecond timescales, which competes directly with free charge separation.

    • Stoichko D. Dimitrov
    • , Scot Wheeler
    •  & James R. Durrant

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of wearable healthcare and intelligence systems require low-cost, large-area flexible electronic sensors. Here, Zang et al. report pressure sensors based on organic thin-film transistors in combination with a suspended-gate device geometry, which show high sensitivity up to 192 kPa−1.

    • Yaping Zang
    • , Fengjiao Zhang
    •  & Daoben Zhu

  • Article |

    There is a growing interest in the development of narrowband photodiodes for full-color imaging and visible-blind near-infrared detection. Armin et al.show a sub-100 nm response by tuning the spectral bandwidth through regulating the charge collection efficiency in a thick organic bulk heterojunction.

    • Ardalan Armin
    • , Ross D. Jansen-van Vuuren
    •  & Paul Meredith

  • Article |

    Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures with type II band alignment have generated wide interest in device physics at the two-dimensional limit. Here, Rivera et al. observe interlayer excitons in vertically stacked MoSe2–WSe2 heterostructures and demonstrate tunability of the energy and luminescence.

    • Pasqual Rivera
    • , John R. Schaibley
    •  & Xiaodong Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Imperfections can greatly alter a material’s properties. Here, the authors investigate the influence of point defects on the electronic structure, charge-carrier mobility and optical absorption of molybdenum disulphide prepared by mechanical exfoliation, physical and chemical vapour deposition.

    • Jinhua Hong
    • , Zhixin Hu
    •  & Ze Zhang

  • Article |

    Hydrodynamic phonon transport occurs when phonons are able to drift over macroscopic distances, leading to the breakdown of Fourier’s law of heat conduction. Here, the authors predict that this regime occurs in suspended graphene at higher temperatures than bulk materials.

    • Sangyeop Lee
    • , David Broido
    •  & Gang Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recently observed rotation of a photon's polarization by interaction with a single solid state spin has potential implications in quantum computing. Here, Arnold et al. demonstrate enhanced spin–photon coupling and polarization rotation via a coupled quantum dot/micropillar cavity system.

    • Christophe Arnold
    • , Justin Demory
    •  & Loïc Lanco

  • Article |

    Molybdenum disulphide is a two-dimensional material that, unlike graphene, has a nonzero bandgap. Here, the authors demonstrate that the bandgap of single-layer molybdenum disulphide grown on graphite by chemical vapour deposition changes with distance from the grain boundary

    • Yu Li Huang
    • , Yifeng Chen
    •  & Andrew T. S. Wee

  • Article |

    Understanding and controlling the electronic band gap of a material is vital for many electronic and optoelectronic applications. Towards this aim, this study shows how huge band gap variations can arise by manipulating the electrostatic interactions via cation ordering in correlated oxide materials.

    • Prasanna V. Balachandran
    •  & James M. Rondinelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fully mapping the Fermi surface of a compound provides a clear picture of its fundamental properties. Through thermoelectric measurements of the underdoped cuprate YBa2Cu3Oy, this study shows evidence for a second Fermi pocket, consistent with charge–density–wave Fermi surface reconstruction.

    • N. Doiron-Leyraud
    • , S. Badoux
    •  & C. Proust

  • Article |

    Reading out the state of quantum bits is an essential requirement that any quantum computer implementation must satisfy. Gonzalez-Zalba et al. now show that in situresonant gate-based detection can be a more sensitive approach than external electrometers while reducing the qubit architecture’s complexity.

    • M. F. Gonzalez-Zalba
    • , S. Barraud
    •  & A. C. Betz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional electron gases at oxide interfaces induce exotic behaviours. By studying samples with different crystal orientation, Herranz et al.show that the extension and anisotropy of the oxide quantum well properties can be controlled through selective sub-band filling via orientational tuning.

    • Gervasi Herranz
    • , Gyanendra Singh
    •  & Josep Fontcuberta

  • Article |

    Grain boundaries between crystalline domains in solution-processed organic semiconductor thin films are believed to inhibit charge transport, but their structure is invisible to conventional characterization techniques. Wong et al. show the existence of nano-crystalline aggregates at domain interfaces.

    • Cathy Y. Wong
    • , Benjamin L. Cotts
    •  & Naomi S. Ginsberg

  • Article |

    The electronic properties of organic charge-transfer complexes are highly coupled to their crystallographic structures. Goetz et al.show that the librational motion can mediate a glass-like transition, resulting in a transition from temperature-activated to temperature-independent charge transport.

    • K. P. Goetz
    • , A. Fonari
    •  & O. D. Jurchescu

  • Article |

    Nanoscale light sources using nonlinearities are needed in many applications but their small size leads to very low efficiencies. Here, Ren et al.exploit the highly confined whispering gallery modes in metal-coated nanowires to achieve enhanced second-harmonic generation with minimal Ohmic losses.

    • Ming-Liang Ren
    • , Wenjing Liu
    •  & Ritesh Agarwal

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