NEW YORK: Graphene is often touted as a replacement for silicon in electronic devices due to its extremely high conductivity and unbeatable thinness. But graphene isn’t the only 2-D material that could play such a role.
Univ. of Pennsylvania researchers have made an advance in manufacturing one such material, molybdenum disulphide. By growing flakes of the material around “seeds” of molybdenum oxide, they have made it easier to control the size, thickness and location of the material.
Unlike graphene, molybdenum disulfide has an energy band gap, meaning its conductivity can be turned on and off. Such a trait is critical for semiconductor devices used in computing. Another difference is that molybdenum disulphide emits light, meaning it could be used in applications like LEDs, self-reporting sensors and optoelectronics.
The study was led by A. T. Charlie Johnson, professor in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, and includes members of his lab, Gang Hee Han, Nicholas Kybert, Carl Naylor and Jinglei Ping. Also contributing to the study was Ritesh Agarwal, professor of materials science and engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science; members of his lab, Bumsu Lee and Joohee Park; and Jisoo Kang, a master’s student in Penn’s nanotechnology program. They collaborated with researchers from South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan Univ., Si Young Lee and Young Hee Lee.
