On March 17, a research team composed of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSMC) and Hsinchu Jiaotong University announced in Taipei that it had made a major breakthrough in the joint synthesis of monoatomic layer boron nitride and successfully developed Single crystal boron nitride growth technology for large area wafer size. The results will be published in the internationally renowned academic journal Nature in March this year.
Zhang Wenhao, one of the heads of the research team and a professor at Hsinchu Jiaotong University, introduced that in order to improve the performance of semiconductor silicon wafers, the size of transistors in integrated circuits has been continuously shrinking, and is currently reaching the physical limit of traditional semiconductor materials. Therefore, scientists around the world continue to explore new materials to solve this bottleneck. The two-dimensional atomic layer semiconductor material, with a thickness of only 0.7 nanometers (1 nanometer is one-billionth of a meter), is currently one of the solutions known to solve the transistor bottleneck.
However, two-dimensional semiconductors only have the thickness of an atomic layer, and how to make electrons transmit inside without interference from adjacent materials has become an important key technology. The single-atom layer of boron nitride, which is only one atom thick, is currently the thinnest insulating layer in nature and is also an important material that has been proven to effectively block two-dimensional semiconductors from interference by adjacent materials. In the past, it has not been possible to synthesize high-quality single crystal monoatomic layer boron nitride on wafers.
It is reported that the joint research plan is led by Dr. Li Lianzhong and Zhang Wenhao of TSMC. The main author of the paper is Dr. Chen Zean of TSMC. This achievement has successfully achieved a wafer-size monoatomic layer boron nitride, combined with a two-dimensional semiconductor, to demonstrate excellent transistor characteristics.
The key to the success of the plan lies in the research team from the basic scientific point of view, to find the physical mechanism of boron nitride molecules deposited on the surface of copper crystals, and then to achieve the growth technology of wafer size single crystal boron nitride. The difficulty of this technique is equivalent to arranging people on the entire surface of the earth at an interval of less than 0.5 meters.
According to reports, the joint research results released by TSMC and Hsinchu Jiaotong University is the first case in which Taiwan ’s industry in China and universities collaborate on the internationally renowned academic journal Nature, which is of index significance for the joint research of industry and universities.