Van der Waals nanomesh electronics on arbitrary surfaces

You Meng; Xiaocui Li; Xiaolin Kang; Wanpeng Li; Wei Wang; Zhengxun Lai; Weijun Wang; Quan Quan; Xiuming Bu; SenPo Yip; Pengshan Xie; Dong Chen; Dengji Li; Fei Wang; Chi-Fung Yeung; Changyong Lan; Chuntai Liu; Lifan Shen; Yang Lu; Furong Chen; Chun-Yuen Wong; Johnny C Ho

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-38090-8

Van der Waals nanomesh electronics on arbitrary surfaces

Nat Commun. 2023 Apr 27;14(1):2431. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38090-8.

Authors

You Meng^#^{1

2}, Xiaocui Li^#^{1

3}, Xiaolin Kang¹, Wanpeng Li¹, Wei Wang^{1

2}, Zhengxun Lai¹, Weijun Wang¹, Quan Quan¹, Xiuming Bu¹, SenPo Yip⁴, Pengshan Xie¹, Dong Chen¹, Dengji Li¹, Fei Wang⁵, Chi-Fung Yeung⁶, Changyong Lan⁷, Chuntai Liu⁸, Lifan Shen⁹, Yang Lu³, Furong Chen¹, Chun-Yuen Wong^{10

11}, Johnny C Ho^{12

13

14}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR.
² State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter Waves, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR.
⁴ Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 816-8580, Japan.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130021, China. wangf@ciomp.ac.cn.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR.
⁷ School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, P. R. China.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials Processing & Mold (Zhengzhou University), Ministry of Education, Zhengzhou, 450002, P.R. China.
⁹ College of Microelectronics and Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Technology, Faculty of Information Technology, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, P.R. China.
¹⁰ State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter Waves, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR. acywong@cityu.edu.hk.
¹¹ Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR. acywong@cityu.edu.hk.
¹² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR. johnnyho@cityu.edu.hk.
¹³ State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter Waves, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong SAR. johnnyho@cityu.edu.hk.
¹⁴ Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 816-8580, Japan. johnnyho@cityu.edu.hk.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Chemical bonds, including covalent and ionic bonds, endow semiconductors with stable electronic configurations but also impose constraints on their synthesis and lattice-mismatched heteroepitaxy. Here, the unique multi-scale van der Waals (vdWs) interactions are explored in one-dimensional tellurium (Te) systems to overcome these restrictions, enabled by the vdWs bonds between Te atomic chains and the spontaneous misfit relaxation at quasi-vdWs interfaces. Wafer-scale Te vdWs nanomeshes composed of self-welding Te nanowires are laterally vapor grown on arbitrary surfaces at a low temperature of 100 °C, bringing greater integration freedoms for enhanced device functionality and broad applicability. The prepared Te vdWs nanomeshes can be patterned at the microscale and exhibit high field-effect hole mobility of 145 cm²/Vs, ultrafast photoresponse below 3 μs in paper-based infrared photodetectors, as well as controllable electronic structure in mixed-dimensional heterojunctions. All these device metrics of Te vdWs nanomesh electronics are promising to meet emerging technological demands.