Collaborative Research: Harnessing Crystalline Phase Transition in 2D Materials for Ultra-Low-Power and Flexible Electronics

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Rapid advances in wearable electronics and mobile device technologies have made it crucial and imperative to explore and demonstrate new semiconductor devices with ultralow-power, fast speed, small size, and flexible mechanical properties. Atomic layer semiconductors and their two-dimensional nanostructures isolated from bulk, layered transition metal dichalcogenide crystals are promising for many applications in nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, and nanoelectromechanical systems, due to their unconventional and exceptional electrical, optical and mechanical properties. Controlled crystalline phase transition, which occurs in certain atomic layer semiconductor materials, and its accompanying semiconductor-to-metal transition, have the potential to eventually lead to important device and circuit applications that permit advanced computing, memory, and sensing with ultralow power consumption. This project combines experimental, theoretical, and simulation approaches to explore, model, and demonstrate a new class of atomically thin, mechanically flexible electronic devices based on the mechanisms of controlled crystalline phase transition in atomic layer semiconductors. The ultralow power and mechanical flexible properties of the devices based on phase transition in atomically thin semiconductors materials make them attractive in future flexible electronics, internet-of-things, and computer technologies. In this project, the PIs will develop and disseminate course modules and simulation tools, and timely employ the research activities to recruit and broaden participation from underrepresented students from high school to graduate student levels, at both Case Western Reserve University and University of Florida. The goals of this collaborative research project are to develop the essential knowledge base for, and to pave the way toward, understanding and harvesting gate-voltage and strain-controlled crystalline phase transition in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide materials for ultralow-power switching devices and flexible electronics applications. The proposed research activities include: (i) Develop a computationally efficient and physically meaningful multiscale simulation platform to simulate crystalline phase transition phenomena in transition metal dichalcogenide crystals induced by a gate voltage or strain; (ii) Experimentally explore strain and gate-voltage-induced phase transition in transition metal dichalcogenide materials; (iii) Couple experimental characterization of the crystalline phase transition in transition metal dichalcogenide devices with theoretical work to develop phase transition flexible electronics and switching devices; (iv) Engineer the phase-transition switch mechanisms in rationally designed device platforms, to achieve steep sub-threshold slope and ultralow-power logic switches. This experiment-theory collaborative team will use advanced nanodevice fabrication, characterization, modeling and simulation techniques to explore and understand how phase transition in transition metal dichalcogenide materials can be tailored, controlled, and utilized for ultralow power and flexible electronics applications. The study will deepen fundamental understanding of phase change phenomena in atomic layer semiconductors, and develop promising device concepts and models to harness gate-voltage and strain-controlled crystalline phase transition in atomically thin semiconductors, to enable future devices and systems for computing, sensing, and communication.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.