2D materials are considered promising candidates for developing next-generation high-performance
energy efficient electronic, optoelectronic, and valley-tronic devices. Though metal oxides
are widely used in the fabrication of many advanced devices, very little work has been
reported on their properties in 2D limit.
Now, University of Utah engineers have discovered a new kind of 2D semiconducting material for
electronics that opens the door for much speedier computers and smartphones that also consume
a lot less power
The semiconductor, made of the elements tin and oxygen, or tin monoxide (SnO), is a layer
of 2D material only one atom thick, allowing electrical charges to move through it much
faster than conventional 3D materials such as silicon. This material could be used in
transistors, the lifeblood of all electronic devices such as computer processors and graphics
processors in desktop computers and mobile devices. The material was discovered by a
team led by University of Utah materials science and engineering associate professor Ashutosh
Tiwari.
Transistors and other components used in electronic devices are currently made of 3D materials
such as silicon and consist of multiple layers on a glass substrate. But the downside to
3D materials is that electrons bounce around inside the layers in all directions.
The benefit of 2D materials, which is an exciting new research field that has opened up only
about five years ago, is that the material is made of one layer the thickness of just
one or two atoms. Consequently, the electrons "can only move in one layer so it's much faster,"
While researchers in this field have recently discovered new types of 2D material such as
graphene, molybdenun disulfide and borophene, they have been materials that only allow the
movement of N-type, or negative, electrons. In order to create an electronic device, however,
you need semiconductor material that allows the movement of both negative electrons and
positive charges known as "holes." The tin monoxide material discovered by Tiwari and
his team is the first stable P-type 2D semiconductor material ever in existence.
Now that Tiwari and his team have discovered this new 2D material, it can lead to the manufacturing
of transistors that are even smaller and faster than those in use today. A computer processor
is comprised of billions of transistors, and the more transistors packed into a single
chip, the more powerful the processor can become.
Transistors made with Tiwari's semiconducting material could lead to computers and smartphones
that are more than 100 times faster than regular devices. And because the electrons move through
one layer instead of bouncing around in a 3D material, there will be less friction,
meaning the processors will not get as hot as normal computer chips. They also will require
much less power to run, a boon for mobile electronics that have to run on battery power.
This could be especially important for medical devices such as electronic implants that will
run longer on a single battery charge.
According to the researchers, in two or three years we should see at least some prototype
device.