U.S. develops two-dimensional semiconductor quantum film of indium arsenide

According to a report from the American Physicist Organization Network on November 14, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a brand new two-dimensional semiconductor, a quantum film made of indium arsenide with a ribbon structure. Simply changing the size can transform from a bulk 3D material to a 2D material. Related papers were published in the recently published Nano Express.

When the size of semiconductor materials is as small as nanometers, their electrical and optical properties are greatly changed, resulting in a quantum confinement effect, whereby one can create a two-dimensional transistor called a quantum film. The quantum film is about 10 nm or less, and its operation is basically limited to a two-dimensional space. Due to this unique property, they can play a major role in the field of highly specialized quantum optics and electronic applications.

Most of the current two-dimensional semiconductor research uses graphene materials. A team led by Ali Jevy of the University of California, Berkeley, used another approach to create an indium arsenide quantum film. Moreover, the new quantum film can be used as a stand-alone material without a substrate, and it can be combined with various substrates. In the past, other similar materials can only be used for one substrate.

They first produced indium arsenide on a gallium arsenide (GaSb) and aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaSb) substrate, placed it on the top layer and designed it to whatever it wanted, and then etched it away and left it. The indium arsenide layer is moved to any desired substrate to make the final product.

In order to test the effect of the product, the research team transferred quantum indium arsenide films with different thicknesses (5 nm to 50 nm) onto a transparent substrate and conducted light absorption experiments. They could directly observe the quantized sub-bands. The optical properties of each subband are plotted. In the course of testing their electrical properties, the team also observed a significant quantum confinement effect, which is very different from that of traditional metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs).

The researchers said that the study not only adds a new material to the semiconductor family, but also helps people understand the principle of structurally constrained materials, brings in more special materials, and takes an important step in the study of 2D physical infrastructure equipment. .