Stenciling with atoms in 2-D materials possible

In 2004, the discovery of a way to isolate a single atomic

a

layer of carbon—graphene —opened a new world of 2D materials with properties not necessarily found in the familiar 3D world. Among these materials are a large group of elements—transition metals—that fall in the middle of the periodic table. When atoms of certain transition metals, for instance molybdenum, are layered between two layers of atoms from the chalcogenide elements, such as sulfur or selenium, the result is a three-layer sandwich called a transition metal dichalcogenide. TMDs have created tremendous interest among materials scientists because of their potential for new types of electronics, optoelectronics and computation.

"What we have focused on in this paper is the ability to make these materials over large areas of a substrate in precisely the places we want them," says Joshua Robinson, associate professor of materials science and engineering. "These materials are of interest for a variety of next-generation electronics, not necessarily to replace silicon, but to augment current technologies and ultimately to bring new chip functionality to silicon that we never had before."

In order to integrate TMDs with silicon in transistors, chip companies will need to have a method to place the atoms precisely where they are needed. That method has not been available until now. In their 2D Materials paper, "Selective-area Growth and Controlled Substrate Coupling of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides," Robinson and his group demonstrate, for the first time, a simple method for making precise patterns of two-dimensional materials using techniques familiar to any nanotechnology lab.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-stenciling-atoms-d-materials.html#jCp