Plasma Synthesis of 2D Materials and Their Applications to Next Generation Devices

The discovery of graphene in 2004 rapidly evolves numerous fields related to layered two dimensional (2D) materials. Especially, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), one of 2D material group, have been taken significant attention owing to their unique characteristics, which enable to use various applications in electric devices, electrochemical catalysts, and sensing technology. However, the usage of 2D TMDCs still faces critical issues and problems such as high temperatures, poor controllability, and low product. In order to overcome the limitations, our research group is focusing on a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process to develop a simple and effective 2D materials synthesis. Since we successfully demonstrated that a wafer scale MoS₂ thin film on a 4-inch SiO₂ substrate was synthesized using PECVD, the fabrication of homogeneous and heterogeneous 2D TMDCs was also accomplished at much lower temperature compared to other reports. Moreover, nano crystallinity in these 2D TMDCs contributes to peculiar electrical properties, allowing them to be utilized to next-generation device applications like negative differential resistance devices, non-volatile memristors, neuromorphic devices. The introduced PECVD-assisted fabrication method not only provides new insight for 2D materials synthesis and processing but pave a way for the realization of advanced electronic devices.