Van der Waals Heterostructures in Electronic Applications

Van der Waals heterostructures assemble atomically thin layers of distinct two-dimensional materials through weak interlayer forces, enabling precise control of electronic band alignments and charge transport. By stacking graphene, transition-metal dichalcogenides, oxides or organic semiconductors, researchers have engineered interfaces that support novel device functions beyond the reach of conventional bulk semiconductors. These heterostructures offer tunable bandgaps, high carrier mobilities and sharp junctions without lattice matching constraints, opening pathways to low-power logic, multi-valued computing, non-volatile memory and highly sensitive photodetectors. Rapid progress in fabrication methods, including dry transfer and wafer-scale chemical vapour deposition, has driven demonstrations of sophisticated circuits with reconfigurable logic states, high on/off ratios and integrated memory. The global significance of this platform lies in its potential to complement or replace complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology for applications requiring extreme energy efficiency, high integration density and novel computational paradigms.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated a heterojunction non-volatile memory transistor in which a drain-aligned floating gate modulates negative transconductance, enabling seamless switching between binary and ternary logic within a single device. The reconfigurable logic inverter exhibits exceptional static noise margins and cycle endurance, illustrating a new approach to logic-in-memory architectures. In a complementary advance, vertically stacked organic ternary inverters incorporating ultrathin polymer dielectrics and flash memory elements have realised full-swing operation at low voltages, stable intermediate logic levels and high DC gain. The three-dimensional integration of these devices points to high-density multi-valued circuits with long-term stability and minimal footprint.

Van der Waals Heterostructures in Electronic Applications publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in van der waals heterostructures in electronic applications across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

van der Waals heterostructure: A vertical assembly of atomically thin layers held together by van der Waals forces, enabling defect-free interfaces between dissimilar materials.

Heterojunction: An interface between two semiconductor materials with differing electronic band structures that governs charge carrier behaviour.

Field-effect transistor (FET): A device in which an electric field controls the conductivity of a semiconductor channel between source and drain terminals.

Tunnelling field-effect transistor (TFET): A FET that exploits quantum tunnelling of carriers across a heterojunction for switching, achieving steep subthreshold slopes and low operating voltages.

Negative differential resistance (NDR): A transport phenomenon where increasing voltage leads to a decrease in current, facilitating multi-valued logic and high-frequency oscillators.

Floating gate: A conductive electrode embedded within a transistor’s gate dielectric that stores charge to modulate threshold voltage for non-volatile memory functions.

References

1. A reconfigurable binary/ternary logic conversion-in-memory based on drain-aligned floating-gate heterojunction transistors. Nature Communications (2023).
2. Vertically stacked, low-voltage organic ternary logic circuits including nonvolatile floating-gate memory transistors. Nature Communications (2022).
3. Ternary Logic Transistors Using Multi‐Stacked 2D Electron Gas Channels in Ultrathin Oxide Heterostructures. Advanced Science (2024).
4. Interlayer Band‐to‐Band Tunneling and Negative Differential Resistance in van der Waals BP/InSe Field‐Effect Transistors. Advanced Functional Materials (2020).
5. Double Negative Differential Resistance Device Based on Hafnium Disulfide/Pentacene Hybrid Structure. Advanced Science (2020).