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Two-dimensional-materials-based transistors using hexagonal boron nitride dielectrics and metal gate electrodes with high cohesive energy

Nature Electronics volume 7, pages 856–867 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors could potentially be used as channel materials in commercial field-effect transistors. However, the interface between 2D semiconductors and most gate dielectrics contains traps that degrade performance. Layered hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) can form a defect-free interface with 2D semiconductors, but when prepared by industry-compatible methods—such as chemical vapour deposition (CVD)—the presence of native defects increases leakage current and reduces dielectric strength. Here we show that metal gate electrodes with a high cohesive energy—platinum and tungsten—can allow CVD-grown layered h-BN to be used as a gate dielectric in transistors. The electrodes can reduce the current across CVD-grown h-BN by a factor of around 500 compared to similar devices with gold electrodes and can provide a high dielectric strength of at least 25 MV cm−1. We examine the behaviour statistically across 867 devices, which includes a microchip based on complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology.

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Fig. 1: Dielectric breakdown and leakage current in Pt/h-BN/Pt and Au/h-BN/Au devices.
Fig. 2: Morphological and chemical characterization of fresh and biased Pt/h-BN/Pt and Au/h-BN/Au devices.
Fig. 3: Dielectric breakdown and leakage current in small Pt/h-BN/Pt and Au/h-BN/Au devices.
Fig. 4: Atomistic simulation of dielectric breakdown in Pt/h-BN/Pt and Au/h-BN/Au devices.
Fig. 5: Characterization of Au/Ti/h-BN/W structures embedded in a microchip.
Fig. 6: Morphology and electrical characteristics of MoS2 transistors with Pt/h-BN gate stack.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this article and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

M.L. acknowledges support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (grant nos. 2019YFE0124200, 2018YFE0100800) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 11661131002, 61874075) and the generous baseline funding scheme of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. S.D. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation through the Career Award under grant no. ECCS-2042154, as well as from the National Science Foundation under cooperative agreement DMR-2039351 for the MOCVD growth of the MoS2 samples in the 2D Crystal Consortium Materials Innovation Platform facility at Penn State. D.W., T.K. and T.G. acknowledge support by the European Research Council under grant no. 101055379. The computational results presented have been achieved in part using the Vienna Scientific Cluster. M.L. acknowledges the platform Web Of Talents (https://weboftalents.com) for support on the recruitment of talented students and postdocs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physical Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Yaqing Shen, Abdulrahman H. Basher, Sebastian Pazos, Wenwen Zheng, Yue Yuan, Udo Schwingenschlögl & Mario Lanza

  2. Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Yaqing Shen, Kaichen Zhu, Yiping Xiao, Xianhu Liang & Wenwen Zheng

  3. Institute for Microelectronics (TU Wien), Vienna, Austria

    Dominic Waldhör, Theresia Knobloch & Tibor Grasser

  4. Catalyst Center of Excellence (CCoE), Research and Development Center, Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

    Abdulrahman H. Basher

  5. Departamento de Electrónica y Tecnología de Computadores, Universidad de Granada, Facultad de Ciencias, Granada, Spain

    Juan B. Roldan

  6. Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    He Tian & Huaqiang Wu

  7. Engineering Science and Mechanics, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Thomas F. Schranghamer & Saptarshi Das

  8. Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Nicholas Trainor, Joan M. Redwing & Saptarshi Das

  9. 2D Crystal Consortium, Materials Research Institute, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Joan M. Redwing & Saptarshi Das

  10. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Saptarshi Das

  11. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Mario Lanza

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Contributions

M.L. conceived the idea, designed the experiments and supervised the entire investigation. Y.S. fabricated and characterized most of the devices. K.Z. fabricated and characterized the devices with W electrodes. Y.X. and X.L. fabricated and characterized the devices at high temperature. W.Z. and Y.Y. sporadically helped Y.S., K.Z. and Y.X. with the fabrication and electrical characterization tasks. T.F.S. fabricated the all-CVD devices with supervision from S.D. The MOCVD MoS2 used in these devices was grown by N.T. with supervision from J.M.R. D.W. and A.H.B. performed the atomistic calculations, and T.K., T.G. and U.S. supervised them. J.B.R., H.T. and S.P. gave comments on the strengths and weaknesses of previous versions of the manuscript. H.W. provided the wafers containing CMOS circuitry. M.L. and Y.S. wrote the manuscript. All the authors read the manuscript and provided comments.

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Correspondence to Mario Lanza.

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Shen, Y., Zhu, K., Xiao, Y. et al. Two-dimensional-materials-based transistors using hexagonal boron nitride dielectrics and metal gate electrodes with high cohesive energy. Nat Electron 7, 856–867 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01233-w

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