CAREER: Dynamically Tuning 2D Semiconducting Crystals and Heterostructures for Atomically-Thin Signal Processing Devices and Systems

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Non-Technical Description: Atomically-thin semiconducting crystals can be derived from layered materials bonded by weak van der Waals interactions. They offer a wide spectrum of attractive properties and enable new two-dimensional nanostructures and building blocks for functional devices, promising a new route to future electronics and optoelectronics beyond the scaling of mainstream devices that are top-down nanofabricated from conventional materials. Yet, many intriguing effects in two-dimensional crystals, and their translations into device platforms for realizing important signal processing functions, remain unexplored. Further innovations require systematic studies of coupling and tuning mechanical, electronic, and optoelectronic properties in two-dimensional semiconductors. The objective of this project is to investigate these fundamental phenomena across different signal domains (mechanical, electrical and optical) in two-dimensional crystals and heterostructures, and to harness such effects to innovate signal processing functions (such as filtering, mixing, timing, function generation and amplification), with new features and benefits. This research advances the current frontiers of two-dimensional materials and devices. The results will elucidate the essential device physics and potential of transforming the attractive two-dimensional crystals into applicable devices. This project will advance scientific knowledge in areas including two-dimensional nanoelectromechanical systems, electronics, optoelectronics, multiphysics analysis and modeling, and two-dimensional device fabrication. This project will generate extraordinary educational materials and inspirations for students at all ages, from K-12 to graduate students. The outreach programs will broaden participations from underrepresented and disadvantaged groups. The PI has initiated collaborations with Cleveland Institute of Music and Children's Museum, developing innovative programs at the crossroad of science and arts, featuring the fascinating nature of nanostructures enabled by two-dimensional crystals and heterostructures. Technical Description: The objective of this project is to directly probe and understand the fundamental electromechanical and optoelectromechanical behavior in two-dimensional semiconducting crystals and heterostructures with designed mechanical degrees of freedom. Furthermore, such understandings of the coupling effects will be harnessed to derive and validate signal processing functions, and directly tested in rationally designed nanostructures. An experimental approach will be emphasized, and will be reinforced by analytical modeling and computer simulations. The research activities include designs and experiments on suspended-channel field-effect transistors, radio-frequency resonant-channel devices with dynamically tunable electromechanical interactions, investigations of tuning, nonlinear, parametric behavior and optoelectronic functions, all in two-dimensional crystals and heterostructures. This project directly aims at investigating new device fundamentals and developing novel technological precursors. The experimental measurements, device prototypes, theoretical analysis and simulations will provide an in-depth, integrated understanding of how to dynamically tune some of the key properties of two-dimensional crystals, and how to efficiently exploit the electromechanical and optoelectromechanical effects to innovate new two-dimensional devices for ultralow-power, ultrasensitive signal transduction. The research activities and the approaches will establish two-dimensional nanoelectromechanical systems as a new branch in parallel to two-dimensional electronics and optoelectronics, paving the way toward future research in a new paradigm of information technology with two-dimensional devices and systems.