High Performance Field-Effect Transistors Based on Partially Suspended 2D Materials via Block Copolymer Lithography

Polymers (Basel). 2021 Feb 14;13(4):566. doi: 10.3390/polym13040566.

Abstract

Although various two-dimensional (2D) materials hold great promise in next generation electronic devices, there are many challenges to overcome to be used in practical applications. One of them is the substrate effect, which directly affects the device performance. The large interfacial area and interaction between 2D materials and substrate significantly deteriorate the device performance. Several top-down approaches have been suggested to solve the problem. Unfortunately, however, they have some drawbacks such as a complicated fabrication process, a high production cost, or a poor mechanical property. Here, we suggest the partially suspended 2D materials-based field-effect transistors (FETs) by introducing block copolymer (BCP) lithography to fabricate the substrate effect-free 2D electronic devices. A wide range of nanometer size holes (diameter = 31~43 nm) is successfully realized with a BCP self-assembly nanopatterning process. With this approach, the interaction mechanism between active 2D materials and substrate is elucidated by precisely measuring the device performance at varied feature size. Our strategy can be widely applied to fabricate 2D materials-based high performance electronic, optoelectronic, and energy devices using a versatile self-assembly nanopatterning process.

Keywords: block copolymer lithography; nanopatterning; substrate effect; suspended structure; two-dimensional (2D) materials.