Evaporated nanometer chalcogenide films for scalable high-performance complementary electronics

The growth of stable and high-mobility semiconductors using industry-compatible methods still attracts interest in electronics community. Here, Noh et al. report wafer-scale ultrathin Bi2S3 and Te semiconductors for high-performance complementary electronics using room temperature thermal evaporation. The exploration of stable and high-mobility semiconductors that can be grown over a large area using cost-effective methods continues to attract the interest of the electronics community. However, many mainstream candidates are challenged by scarce and expensive components, manufacturing costs, low stability, and limitations of large-area growth. Herein, we report wafer-scale ultrathin (metal) chalcogenide semiconductors for high-performance complementary electronics using standard room temperature thermal evaporation. The n-type bismuth sulfide delivers an in-situ transition from a conductor to a high-mobility semiconductor after mild post-annealing with self-assembly phase conversion, achieving thin-film transistors with mobilities of over 10 cm(2) V-1 s(-1), on/off current ratios exceeding 10(8), and high stability. Complementary inverters are constructed in combination with p-channel tellurium device with hole mobilities of over 50 cm(2) V-1 s(-1), delivering remarkable voltage transfer characteristics with a high gain of 200. This work has laid the foundation for depositing scalable electronics in a simple and cost-effective manner, which is compatible with monolithic integration with commercial products such as organic light-emitting diodes.

Automated summary

This study presents the synthesis of wafer-scale ultrathin bismuth sulfide and tellurium semiconductors using room temperature thermal evaporation, which demonstrate high performance in complementary electronics. The fabricated thin-film transistors exhibit high mobility and stability, and complementary inverters show remarkable voltage transfer characteristics with a high gain. This work paves the way for scalable and cost-effective deposition of semiconductors for integrated electronics.