First atom-thick electrical junction
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029090
Ars Technica : A p–n junction, essential to most electronic devices, is a boundary between two types of semiconducting materials and is usually created through chemical doping. Creating those junctions on the scale of a single atom has proven difficult. Now, an international team of researchers has succeeded in creating a single-atom-thick p–n junction by using vapor deposition to layer two different two-dimensional semiconductor materials. Because the two materials vaporize at significantly different temperatures, one layer can be set in place before the second material, which vaporizes at the lower temperature, is deposited on top. Testing revealed that the resulting material behaved like a p–n junction, but the team has not yet demonstrated its use in any actual circuits.