Wafer-scale and universal van der Waals metal semiconductor contact

Van der Waals (vdW) metallic contacts have been demonstrated as a promising approach to reduce the contact resistance and minimize the Fermi level pinning at the interface of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. However, only a limited number of metals can be mechanically peeled and laminated to fabricate vdW contacts, and the required manual transfer process is not scalable. Here, we report a wafer-scale and universal vdW metal integration strategy readily applicable to a wide range of metals and semiconductors. By utilizing a thermally decomposable polymer as the buffer layer, different metals were directly deposited without damaging the underlying 2D semiconductor channels. The polymer buffer could be dry-removed through thermal annealing. With this technique, various metals could be vdW integrated as the contact of 2D transistors, including Ag, Al, Ti, Cr, Ni, Cu, Co, Au, Pd. Finally, we demonstrate that this vdW integration strategy can be extended to bulk semiconductors with reduced Fermi level pinning effect.

Lingan Kong, Ruixia Wu, Yang Chen, Ying Huangfu, Liting Liu, Wei Li, Donglin Lu, Quanyang Tao, Wenjing Song, Wanying Li, Zheyi Lu, Xiao Liu, Yunxin Li, Zhiwei Li, Wei Tong, Shuimei Ding, Songlong Liu, Likuan Ma, Liwang Ren, Yiliu Wang, Lei Liao, Xidong Duan, Yuan Liu