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Research Highlight

Low-damage editing of 2D materials using e-beam induced, gas-assisted etching

Low-damage editing of 2D materials using e-beam induced, gas-assisted etching
Top: Schematic of focused EBIE process on MoS2 where the e-beam forms volatile and reactive fluorine species from the XeF2 precursor gas that causes etching of the exposed material. 
Bottom: Single layer MoS2 field effect transistors a) before and b) after “on-demand” deterministic editing via focused EBIE.

Scientific Achievement

A gas-assisted e-beam induced fluorination process was found to enable selective editing of MoS2 with minimal peripheral damage to the sensitive, atomically thin layers

Significance and Impact

2D material properties are often negated during handling and integration due to their susceptibility to energetic processing.  Chemically assisted e-beam induced etching (EBIE) is a minimally invasive method to tailor the properties of 2D materials and is poised to become critical to prototyping next generation 2D computing and quantum architectures.

Research Details

  • Determined etch efficiency vs. electron dose down to monolayer removal of MoS2 with XeF2 etchant precursor
  • Damage was characterized via Raman, photoluminescence, and atomic resolution STEM
  • Fabricated field effect transistors with varying channel width to demonstrate lateral extent of peripheral damage to MoS2

J. Lasseter, S. Gellerup, S. Ghosh,  S.J. Yun, R.K. Vasudevan, R.R. Unocic, O. Olunloyo, S.T. Retterer, K. Xiao, S.J. Randolph, and P.D. Rack, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 16, 9144-9154 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c17182.

Work was performed at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences.