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The development of compact and fieldable mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy devices represents a critical challenge for distributed sensing with applications from gas leak detection to environmental monitoring. Recent work has focused on mid-IR photonic integrated circuit (PIC) sensing platforms and waveguide-integrated mid-IR light sources and detectors based on semiconductors such as PbTe, black phosphorus and tellurene. However, material bandgaps and reliance on SiO₂substrates limit operation to wavelengthsλ ≲ 4 μm. Here we overcome these challenges with a chalcogenide glass-on-CaF₂PIC architecture incorporating split-gate photothermoelectric graphene photodetectors. Our design extends operation toλ = 5.2 μm with a Johnson noise-limited noise-equivalent power of 1.1 nW/Hz^1/2, no fall-off in photoresponse up tof = 1 MHz, and a predicted 3-dB bandwidth off_3dB > 1 GHz. This mid-IR PIC platform readily extends to longer wavelengths and opens the door to applications from distributed gas sensing and portable dual comb spectroscopy to weather-resilient free space optical communications.

 

Technology advancements in history have often been propelled by material innovations. In recent years, two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted substantial interest as an ideal platform to construct atomic-level material architectures. In this work, we design a reaction pathway steered in a very different energy landscape, in contrast to typical thermal chemical vapor deposition method in high temperature, to enable room-temperature atomic-layer substitution (RT-ALS). First-principle calculations elucidate how the RT-ALS process is overall exothermic in energy and only has a small reaction barrier, facilitating the reaction to occur at room temperature. As a result, a variety of Janus monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides with vertical dipole could be universally realized. In particular, the RT-ALS strategy can be combined with lithography and flip-transfer to enable programmable in-plane multiheterostructures with different out-of-plane crystal symmetry and electric polarization. Various characterizations have confirmed the fidelity of the precise single atomic layer conversion. Our approach for designing an artificial 2D landscape at selective locations of a single layer of atoms can lead to unique electronic, photonic, and mechanical properties previously not found in nature. This opens a new paradigm for future material design, enabling structures and properties for unexplored territories. 

The 2D van der Waals crystals have shown great promise as potential future electronic materials due to their atomically thin and smooth nature, highly tailorable electronic structure, and mass production compatibility through chemical synthesis. Electronic devices, such as field effect transistors (FETs), from these materials require patterning and fabrication into desired structures. Specifically, the scale up and future development of “2D”-based electronics will inevitably require large numbers of fabrication steps in the patterning of 2D semiconductors, such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). This is currently carried out via multiple steps of lithography, etching, and transfer. As 2D devices become more complex (e.g., numerous 2D materials, more layers, specific shapes, etc.), the patterning steps can become economically costly and time consuming. Here, we developed a method to directly synthesize a 2D semiconductor, monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), in arbitrary patterns on insulating SiO₂/Si via seed-promoted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and substrate engineering. This method shows the potential of using the prepatterned substrates as a master template for the repeated growth of monolayer MoS₂patterns. Our technique currently produces arbitrary monolayer MoS₂patterns at a spatial resolution of 2 μm with excellent homogeneity and transistor performance (room temperature electron mobility of 30 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹and on–off current ratio of 10⁷). Extending this patterning method to other 2D materials can provide a facile method for the repeatable direct synthesis of 2D materials for future electronics and optoelectronics.

 

The large‐area synthesis of high‐quality MoS₂plays an important role in realizing industrial applications of optoelectronics, nanoelectronics, and flexible devices. However, current techniques for chemical vapor deposition (CVD)‐grown MoS₂require a high synthetic temperature and a transfer process, which limits its utilization in device fabrications. Here, the direct synthesis of high‐quality monolayer MoS₂with the domain size up to 120 µm by metal‐organic CVD (MOCVD) at a temperature of 320 °C is reported. Owing to the low‐substrate temperature, the MOCVD‐grown MoS₂exhibits low impurity doping and nearly unstrained properties on the growth substrate, demonstrating enhanced electronic performance with high electron mobility of 68.3 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹at room temperature. In addition, by tuning the precursor ratio, a better understanding of the MoS₂growth process via a geometric model of the MoS₂flake shape, is developed, which can provide further guidance for the synthesis of 2D materials.

 

A roll‐to‐roll (R2R) transfer technique is employed to improve the electrical properties of transferred graphene on flexible substrates using parylene as an interfacial layer. A layer of parylene is deposited on graphene/copper (Cu) foils grown by chemical vapor deposition and are laminated onto ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/poly(ethylene terephthalate). Then, the samples are delaminated from the Cu using an electrochemical transfer process, resulting in flexible and conductive substrates with sheet resistances of below 300 Ω sq⁻¹, which is significantly better (fourfold) than the sample transferred by R2R without parylene (1200 Ω sq⁻¹). The characterization results indicate that parylene C and D dope graphene due to the presence of chlorine atoms in their structure, resulting in higher carrier density and thus lower sheet resistance. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the binding energy between parylene and graphene is stronger than that of EVA and graphene, which may lead to less tear in graphene during the R2R transfer. Finally, organic solar cells are fabricated on the ultrathin and flexible parylene/graphene substrates and an ultra‐lightweight device is achieved with a power conversion efficiency of 5.86%. Additionally, the device shows a high power per weight of 6.46 W g⁻¹with superior air stability.