Bendable, high-performance inverters

Researchers have created a novel type of complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverters, potentially useful in the making of flexible electronics¹. 

The scientists combined two different monolayer two-dimensional semiconductors (tungsten diselenide and molybdenum disulfide semiconducting films) on a sapphire substrate. The resulting CMOS inverters were transferred to plastic substrate. 

Inverters made using only one type of semiconductors consume high power. The new inverters, made by scientists from Saudi Arabia, Japan and Taiwan, are low-power. 

They also showed higher voltage gain than similar two-dimensional semiconducting materials, negligible off-state voltage, and good switching speed. 

When bent on a plastic substrate the inverters retained their stability, indicating that they are flexible. 

These inverters’ voltage gains were ten times higher than those of graphene inverters and nearly four times higher than those of similar transition-metal-based semiconductors.   

“The integration of two different semiconductors on a single substrate is promising for future circuit development, particularly for flexible electronics,” says Lain-Jong Li, one of the researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia.

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