Concepts of non-volatile memory to replace conventional flash memory have suffered from low material reliability and high off-state current, and the use of a thick, rigid blocking oxide layer in flash memory further restricts vertical scale-up. Here, we report a two-terminal floating gate memory, tunnelling random access memory fabricated by a monolayer MoS2/h-BN/monolayer graphene vertical stack. Our device uses a two-terminal electrode for current flow in the MoS2 channel and simultaneously for charging and discharging the graphene floating gate through the h-BN tunnelling barrier. By effective charge tunnelling through crystalline h-BN layer and storing charges in graphene layer, our memory device demonstrates an ultimately low off-state current of 10−14 A, leading to ultrahigh on/off ratio over 109, about ∼103 times higher than other two-terminal memories. Furthermore, the absence of thick, rigid blocking oxides enables high stretchability (>19%) which is useful for soft electronics.

Background Modeling abilities play an important role in engineering. The creation and use of representations is a central aspect of modeling, and students who are learning to model often use a variety of representations to express, test, revise, and communicate their own thinking. Consequently, model development often depends on representational fluency and the ability to translate between and within different representational forms. Purpose This study investigates the role that representations and representational fluency play in conceptual understanding during a complex modeling task related to heat transfer. Design/Method This study involved 16 teams of 3 or 4 college students in a first‐semester heat transfer course participating in a complex modeling task. The task of the student teams was to develop a model to predict the interface temperature and the sensation felt by human skin when touching a utensil made of a given material at a given temperature. Data sources included audio recordings of student teams, as well as student‐generated artifacts. Results The results show teams thinking about their model through multiple representations and through translations within and among representations. Students' early ways of thinking used a variety of interacting representations but were often unstable and involved incomplete notions of the system to be modeled. Model development involved increasing representational fluency as well as parallel and interacting progress along a variety of dimensions. Conclusions This study furthers the understanding of representational fluency in undergraduate engineering students in a heat transfer setting and how representational fluency contributes to conceptual and application understanding.

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Piezoelectricity of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) under mechanical strain has been theoretically and experimentally studied. Powerful strain sensors using Schottky barrier variation in TMD/metal junctions as a result of the strain-induced lattice distortion and associated ion-charge polarization were demonstrated. However, the nearly fixed work function of metal electrodes limits the variation range of a Schottky barrier. We demonstrate a highly sensitive strain sensor using a variable Schottky barrier in a MoS2/graphene heterostructure field effect transistor (FET). The low density of states near the Dirac point in graphene allows large modulation of the graphene Fermi level and corresponding Schottky barrier in a MoS2/graphene junction by strain-induced polarized charges of MoS2. Our theoretical simulations and temperature-dependent electrical measurements show that the Schottky barrier change is maximized by placing the Fermi level of the graphene at the charge neutral (Dirac) point by applying gate voltage. As a result, the maximum Schottky barrier change (ΔΦSB) and corresponding current change ratio under 0.17% strain reach 118 meV and 978, respectively, resulting in an ultrahigh gauge factor of 575 294, which is approximately 500 times higher than that of metal/TMD junction strain sensors (1160) and 140 times higher than the conventional strain sensors (4036). The ultrahigh sensitivity of graphene/MoS2 heterostructure FETs can be developed for next-generation electronic and mechanical–electronic devices.

van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) of metallic (m-) and semiconducting (s-) transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit an ideal metal/semiconductor (M/S) contact in a field-effect transistor. However, in the current two-step chemical vapor deposition process, the synthesis of m-TMD on pregrown s-TMD contaminates the van der Waals (vdW) interface and hinders the doping of s-TMD. Here, NbSe 2 /Nb-doped-WSe 2 metal-doped-semiconductor (M/d-S) vdWHs are created via a one-step synthesis approach using a niobium molar ratio-controlled solution-phase precursor. The one-step growth approach synthesizes Nb-doped WSe 2 with a controllable doping concentration and metal/doped-semiconductor vdWHs. The hole carrier concentration can be precisely controlled by controlling the Nb/(W + Nb) molar ratio in the precursor solution from ∼3 × 10 11 /cm 2 at Nb-0% to ∼1.38 × 10 12 /cm 2 at Nb-60%; correspondingly, the contact resistance R C value decreases from 10 888.78 at Nb-0% to 70.60 kΩ.μm at Nb-60%. The Schottky barrier height measurement in the Arrhenius plots of ln(I sat /T 2 ) versus q/K B T demonstrated an ohmic contact in the NbSe 2 /W x Nb 1−x Se 2 vdWHs. Combining p-doping in WSe 2 and M/d-S vdWHs, the mobility (27.24 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ) and on/off ratio (2.2 × 10 7 ) are increased 1238 and 4400 times, respectively, compared to that using the Cr/pure-WSe 2 contact (0.022 cm 2 V −1 s −1 and 5 × 10 3 , respectively). Together, the R C value using the NbSe 2 contact shows 2.46 kΩ.μm, which is ∼29 times lower than that of using a metal contact. This method is expected to guide the synthesis of various M/d-S vdWHs and applications in future high-performance integrated circuits.

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The extract obtained from berries contains high amounts of anthocyanins, and this extract is used as a phytotherapeutic agent for different types of diseases. In this study, we examined the cytoprotective effects of cyanidin-3-glucoside (C3G) isolated from mulberry fruit against pancreatic β-cell apoptosis caused by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced oxidative stress. The MIN6 pancreatic β-cells were used to investigate the cytoprotective effects of C3G on the oxidative stress-induced apoptosis of cells. Cell viability was examined by MTT assay and lipid peroxidation was assayed by thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reaction. Immunofluorescence staining, flow cytometry and western blot analysis were also used to determine apoptosis and the expression of proteins associated with apoptosis. Our results revealed that H2O2 increased the rate of apoptosis by stimulating various pro-apoptotic processes, such as the generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), lipid peroxidation, DNA fragmentation and caspase-3 activation. However, C3G reduced the H2O2-induced cell death in the MIN6N pancreatic β-cells. In addition, we confirmed that H2O2 activated mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), such as extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 MAPK. C3G inhibited the phosphorylation of ERK and p38 without inducing the phosphorylation of JNK. Furthermore, C3G regulated the intrinsic apoptotic pathway-associated proteins, such as proteins belonging to the Bcl-2 family, cytochrome c and caspase-3. Taken together, our results suggest that C3G isolated from mulberry fruit has potential for use as a phytotherapeutic agent for the prevention of diabetes by preventing oxidative stress-induced β-cell apoptosis.

Two-dimensional (2D) layered materials with properties such as a large surface-to-volume ratio, strong light interaction, and transparency are expected to be used in future optoelectronic applications. Many studies have focused on ways to increase absorption of 2D-layered materials for use in photodetectors. In this work, we demonstrate another strategy for improving photodetector performance using a graphene/MoS2 heterojunction phototransistor with a short channel length and a tunable Schottky barrier. The channel length of sub-30 nm, shorter than the diffusion length, decreases carrier recombination and carrier transit time in the channel and improves phototransistor performance. Furthermore, our graphene/MoS2 heterojunction phototransistor employed a tunable Schottky barrier that is only controlled by light and gate bias. It maintains a low dark current and an increased photocurrent. As a result, our graphene/MoS2 heterojunction phototransistor showed ultrahigh responsivity and detectivity of 2.2 × 105 A/W and 3.5 × 1013 Jones, respectively. This is a considerable improvement compared to previous pristine MoS2 phototransistors. We confirmed an effective method to develop phototransistors based on 2D materials and obtained ultrahigh performance of our phototransistor, which is promising for high-performance optoelectronic applications.