Thickness scaling of atomic-layer-deposited HfO2 films and their application to wafer-scale graphene tunnelling transistors.

The downscaling of the capacitance equivalent oxide thickness (CET) of a gate dielectric film with a high dielectric constant, such as atomic layer deposited (ALD) HfO2, is a fundamental challenge in achieving high-performance graphene-based transistors with a low gate leakage current. Here, we assess the application of various surface modification methods on monolayer graphene sheets grown by chemical vapour deposition to obtain a uniform and pinhole-free ALD HfO2 film with a substantially small CET at a wafer scale. The effects of various surface modifications, such as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone treatment and introduction of sputtered ZnO and e-beam-evaporated Hf seed layers on monolayer graphene, and the subsequent HfO2 film formation under identical ALD process parameters were systematically evaluated. The nucleation layer provided by the Hf seed layer (which transforms to the HfO2 layer during ALD) resulted in the uniform and conformal deposition of the HfO2 film without damaging the graphene, which is suitable for downscaling the CET. After verifying the feasibility of scaling down the HfO2 thickness to achieve a CET of ~1.5 nm from an array of top-gated metal-oxide-graphene field-effect transistors, we fabricated graphene heterojunction tunnelling transistors with a record-low subthreshold swing value of <60 mV/dec on an 8" glass wafer.

Wafer-scale synthesis of thickness-controllable MoS2 films via solution-processing using a dimethylformamide/n-butylamine/2-aminoethanol solvent system.

The wafer-scale synthesis of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) films, with high layer-controllability and uniformity, remains a significant challenge in the fields of nano and optoelectronics. Here, we report the highly thickness controllable growth of uniform MoS2 thin films on the wafer-scale via a spin-coating route. Formulation of a dimethylformamide-based MoS2 precursor solution mixed with additional amine- and amino alcohol-based solvents (n-butylamine and 2-aminoethanol) allowed for the formation of a uniform coating of MoS2 thin films over a 2 inch wafer-scale SiO2/Si substrate. In addition, facile control of the average number of stacking layers is demonstrated by simply manipulating the concentration of the precursor solution. Various characterization results reveal that the synthesized MoS2 film has wafer-scale homogeneity with excellent crystalline quality and a stoichiometric chemical composition. To further demonstrate possible device applications, a mostly penta-layered MoS2 thin film was integrated into a top-gated field-effect transistor as the channel layer and we also successfully transferred our films onto transparent/flexible substrates.