Superionic fluoride gate dielectrics with low diffusion barrier for two-dimensional electronics

Kui Meng; Zeya Li; Peng Chen; Xingyue Ma; Junwei Huang; Jiayi Li; Feng Qin; Caiyu Qiu; Yilin Zhang; Ding Zhang; Yu Deng; Yurong Yang; Genda Gu; Harold Y Hwang; Qi-Kun Xue; Yi Cui; Hongtao Yuan

doi:10.1038/s41565-024-01675-5

Superionic fluoride gate dielectrics with low diffusion barrier for two-dimensional electronics

Nat Nanotechnol. 2024 May 15. doi: 10.1038/s41565-024-01675-5. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Kui Meng^#¹, Zeya Li^#¹, Peng Chen^#¹, Xingyue Ma^#¹, Junwei Huang¹, Jiayi Li¹, Feng Qin¹, Caiyu Qiu¹, Yilin Zhang¹, Ding Zhang², Yu Deng¹, Yurong Yang³, Genda Gu⁴, Harold Y Hwang^{5

6

7}, Qi-Kun Xue^{8

9}, Yi Cui^{10

11

12}, Hongtao Yuan¹³

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics and Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
³ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China. yangyr@nju.edu.cn.
⁴ Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.
⁵ Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
⁶ Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁷ Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics and Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. qkxue@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁹ Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. qkxue@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA. yicui@stanford.edu.
¹¹ Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. yicui@stanford.edu.
¹² Department of Material Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. yicui@stanford.edu.
¹³ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China. htyuan@nju.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38750167
DOI: 10.1038/s41565-024-01675-5

Abstract

Exploration of new dielectrics with a large capacitive coupling is an essential topic in modern electronics when conventional dielectrics suffer from the leakage issue near the breakdown limit. Here, to address this looming challenge, we demonstrate that rare-earth metal fluorides with extremely low ion migration barriers can generally exhibit an excellent capacitive coupling over 20 μF cm^-2 (with an equivalent oxide thickness of ~0.15 nm and a large effective dielectric constant near 30) and great compatibility with scalable device manufacturing processes. Such a static dielectric capability of superionic fluorides is exemplified by MoS₂ transistors exhibiting high on/off current ratios over 10⁸, ultralow subthreshold swing of 65 mV dec^-1 and ultralow leakage current density of ~10^-6 A cm^-2. Therefore, the fluoride-gated logic inverters can achieve notably higher static voltage gain values (surpassing ~167) compared with a conventional dielectric. Furthermore, the application of fluoride gating enables the demonstration of NAND, NOR, AND and OR logic circuits with low static energy consumption. In particular, the superconductor-insulator transition at the clean-limit Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_8+δ can also be realized through fluoride gating. Our findings highlight fluoride dielectrics as a pioneering platform for advanced electronic applications and for tailoring emergent electronic states in condensed matter.

Abstract

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