Low-Power CMOS Inverter Using Homogeneous Monolayer WSe₂ Channel With Polarity Control

While performance metrics of innovative technology-nodes continue to improve rapidly, energy efficiency has not kept pace. In this work, we successfully constructed a homogeneous CMOS inverter using monolayer tungsten diselenide (WSe<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub>), a promising candidate can maintain good mobility at atomic-level thickness and offers better resistance to short-channel effects. Through different contact engineering and passivation doping approaches, the polarity of WSe<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> could be effectively tailored. These module improvements are helpful to investigate the impact on threshold voltage of several critical process steps and match performance of both n and p-type field-effect transistors with low effective oxide thickness back-gate dielectrics in enhancement-mode operation. In addition, the inverters demonstrate superior performance at a relevant supply voltage (VDD) of 1.5 V: voltage gain exceeding 10 V/V, noise margin over 80%, picowatt-range static-power consumption, and near-ideal switching voltage of half-VDD. Reaching these numbers simultaneously opens up the possibilities for future-generation applications of two-dimensional material-based electronic components.