Periodic Reporting for period 1 - POL_2D_PHYSICS (Polarized 2D Materials Inspired by Naturally Occurring Phyllosilicates)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-05-01 bis 2025-10-31
Over the past several decades, advancements in microelectronics have enabled our society to enter the digital age, which is driven by information and communication technologies. Today, we likely depend on computer technology more than we depend on fossil fuels. While relying on computers is not inherently negative, our dependence on these technologies requires us to continuously improve the performance of electronic devices to meet the demands of our developing digital society.
In the near future, especially with the integration of artificial intelligence-based algorithms, we will expect mobile and wearable devices to interact with human-friendly inputs such as images, sounds, and natural language. These devices will also need to make real-time decisions based on these complex inputs. Currently, performance at this level is only possible to some extent on large, stationary, and dedicated systems. However, we need these technologies on mobile, compact platforms with minimal power consumption. To achieve this, we need revolutionary new approaches to hardware architectures and materials for future electronics.
This is where the POL_2D_PHYSICS project aims to provide a solution. In our project, we are addressing a class of functional dielectrics for electronic applications that has largely been overlooked by the scientific community and major, innovation-leading electronic industries. Our goal is to establish two-dimensional phyllosilicates, also known as sheet silicate clays, as high-performance dielectrics for future electronic applications. This material class shows great promise, particularly in neuromorphic computing architectures, which are better suited for complex AI-based applications. Some sheet silicate minerals have been shown to exhibit long-range field ordering in the bulk. Translating these properties to 2D electronic devices will enable new computing in memory and self-reconfigurable architectures. These advanced electronic concepts differ greatly from current stationary hardware and will allow future electronics to physically mimic features that only our brains can perform today. Future chips will be non-binary, stochastic, and reconfigurable at the hardware level. They will be capable of physical changes and able to reconfigure their interconnects and repurpose their functions in a Darwinian manner by competing for use. Our team hopes that 2D phyllosilicates and this project will lay the groundwork for future advancements in electronics.
In the near future, especially with the integration of artificial intelligence-based algorithms, we will expect mobile and wearable devices to interact with human-friendly inputs such as images, sounds, and natural language. These devices will also need to make real-time decisions based on these complex inputs. Currently, performance at this level is only possible to some extent on large, stationary, and dedicated systems. However, we need these technologies on mobile, compact platforms with minimal power consumption. To achieve this, we need revolutionary new approaches to hardware architectures and materials for future electronics.
This is where the POL_2D_PHYSICS project aims to provide a solution. In our project, we are addressing a class of functional dielectrics for electronic applications that has largely been overlooked by the scientific community and major, innovation-leading electronic industries. Our goal is to establish two-dimensional phyllosilicates, also known as sheet silicate clays, as high-performance dielectrics for future electronic applications. This material class shows great promise, particularly in neuromorphic computing architectures, which are better suited for complex AI-based applications. Some sheet silicate minerals have been shown to exhibit long-range field ordering in the bulk. Translating these properties to 2D electronic devices will enable new computing in memory and self-reconfigurable architectures. These advanced electronic concepts differ greatly from current stationary hardware and will allow future electronics to physically mimic features that only our brains can perform today. Future chips will be non-binary, stochastic, and reconfigurable at the hardware level. They will be capable of physical changes and able to reconfigure their interconnects and repurpose their functions in a Darwinian manner by competing for use. Our team hopes that 2D phyllosilicates and this project will lay the groundwork for future advancements in electronics.
We have succeeded in imaging magnetic domains in two-dimensional (2D) flakes of annite, a fully iron-substituted mica. To our knowledge, this is the world’s first direct observation of magnetic domains in the entire class of phyllosilicates. Despite being studied extensively since the 1980s from many different fields, including mineralogy, planetary geology, inorganic chemistry, and solid-state physics, as well as cancer research, the lack of high-quality single-crystalline samples and matching low-temperature, high-sensitivity imaging probes is likely the reason why no one has yet observed magnetic domain formation in this mineral class. Using scanning superconducting interference device microscopy, we observed domain formation and recorded layer-dependent behavior of the magnetization loops in the monolayer range. We observed A-type in-plane antiferromagnetic ordering when the sample was allowed to self-magnetize. This is in contrast to ferromagnetic ordering when the sample was cooled below its critical ordering temperature in the presence of an external field (pending publication).
We have demonstrated graphite contacts to the 2D semiconductor channel of PtSe2 with record-breaking performance, especially for PtSe2 thicknesses below 4 nm (10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c00956). We observed a reduction in contact resistance by several orders of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art methods. Consequently, we achieved some of the highest reported experimental values for carrier mobility and on/off ratios in 2D semiconductors.