Emerging Opportunities for 2D Semiconductor/Ferroelectric Transistor‐Structure Devices

Abstract

Semiconductor technology, which is rapidly evolving, is poised to enter a new era for which revolutionary innovations are needed to address fundamental limitations on material and working principle level. 2D semiconductors inherently holding novel properties at the atomic limit show great promise to tackle challenges imposed by traditional bulk semiconductor materials. Synergistic combination of 2D semiconductors with functional ferroelectrics further offers new working principles, and is expected to deliver massively enhanced device performance for existing complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technologies and add unprecedented applications for next‐generation electronics. Herein, recent demonstrations of novel device concepts based on 2D semiconductor/ferroelectric heterostructures are critically reviewed covering their working mechanisms, device construction, applications, and challenges. In particular, emerging opportunities of CMOS‐process‐compatible 2D semiconductor/ferroelectric transistor structure devices for the development of a rich variety of applications are discussed, including beyond‐Boltzmann transistors, nonvolatile memories, neuromorphic devices, and reconfigurable nanodevices such as p–n homojunctions and self‐powered photodetectors. It is concluded that 2D semiconductor/ferroelectric heterostructures, as an emergent heterogeneous platform, could drive many more exciting innovations for modern electronics, beyond the capability of ubiquitous silicon systems.

2D Bi2Se3 materials for optoelectronics

“…This dependence can be explained by the quantum confinement effect ( Liu et al., 2019a , 2019b ). The wide spectral absorption of Bi 2 Se 3 make it a promising candidate material for constructing visible-infrared photodetectors ( Hong et al., 2020 ; Liu et al., 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ; Luo et al., 2021a , 2021b ; Zhang et al., 2010 ).

Figure 4 Visible-infrared photodetection of 2D Bi 2 Se 3 flakes (A) ARPES band dispersion of a 2D Bi 2 Se 3 flake.

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“…It is urgent to focus on device performance improvement and innovative device concepts. Constructing ferroelectric heterostructure by combining 2D Bi 2 Se 3 with ferroelectric material is expected to manipulate the carrier concentration and suppress the dark current of optoelectronic device for the purpose of achieving high sensitivity ( Luo et al., 2021a , 2021b ; Lv et al., 2019 ; Wu et al., 2020 ). In the meanwhile, an extended feature of mid/far-infrared detection in this heterostructure may be obtained by exploiting the inherent thermoelectric property of Bi 2 Se 3 and pyroelectric character of ferroelectric material ( Gopalan et al, 2017 ; Shimatani et al., 2019 ; Wang et al., 2019a , 2019b , 2019c ).…”

A Marr's Three‐Level Analytical Framework for Neuromorphic Electronic Systems

“…In the last two sections, we have already seen examples of how advanced technologies enable electronic mimics of individual parts of the neural system with demonstrated simple computational functionalities. We do not intend to survey the neuromorphic hardware implementation again as this has been done in numerous reviews, just to name a few, at materials level, [ 48,661–722 ] at device level, [ 10,244,263,723–790 ] at more circuit level, or above. [ …”

Discovery of Robust Ferroelectricity in 2D Defective Semiconductor α‑Ga2Se3

“…Ferroelectric materials, characterized by the polar structures whose polarization can be reversed by an external electric field, [ 1 ] are important for various applications, including capacitors, photonics devices, smart sensors, and nonvolatile memories, etc. [ 2–4 ] Ultrathin ferroelectrics are crucial for miniaturizing ferroelectric devices to develop low‐power and high‐density electronics. [ 5–7 ] However, retaining robust ferroelectricity at room temperature in the ultrathin traditional ferroelectrics has become a fundamental challenge because of the depolarization field or interfacial effects.…”