Hexagonal Boron Nitride for Next‐Generation Photonics and Electronics

We describe monocrystalline graphitic films, which are a few atoms thick but are nonetheless stable under ambient conditions, metallic, and of remarkably high quality. The films are found to be a two-dimensional semimetal with a tiny overlap between valence and conductance bands, and they exhibit a strong ambipolar electric field effect such that electrons and holes in concentrations up to 10 13 per square centimeter and with room-temperature mobilities of ∼10,000 square centimeters per volt-second can be induced by applying gate voltage.

The remarkable properties of graphene have renewed interest in inorganic, two-dimensional materials with unique electronic and optical attributes. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are layered materials with strong in-plane bonding and weak out-of-plane interactions enabling exfoliation into two-dimensional layers of single unit cell thickness. Although TMDCs have been studied for decades, recent advances in nanoscale materials characterization and device fabrication have opened up new opportunities for two-dimensional layers of thin TMDCs in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics. TMDCs such as MoS(2), MoSe(2), WS(2) and WSe(2) have sizable bandgaps that change from indirect to direct in single layers, allowing applications such as transistors, photodetectors and electroluminescent devices. We review the historical development of TMDCs, methods for preparing atomically thin layers, their electronic and optical properties, and prospects for future advances in electronics and optoelectronics.

Quantum electrodynamics (resulting from the merger of quantum mechanics and relativity theory) has provided a clear understanding of phenomena ranging from particle physics to cosmology and from astrophysics to quantum chemistry. The ideas underlying quantum electrodynamics also influence the theory of condensed matter, but quantum relativistic effects are usually minute in the known experimental systems that can be described accurately by the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation. Here we report an experimental study of a condensed-matter system (graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon) in which electron transport is essentially governed by Dirac's (relativistic) equation. The charge carriers in graphene mimic relativistic particles with zero rest mass and have an effective 'speed of light' c* approximately 10(6) m s(-1). Our study reveals a variety of unusual phenomena that are characteristic of two-dimensional Dirac fermions. In particular we have observed the following: first, graphene's conductivity never falls below a minimum value corresponding to the quantum unit of conductance, even when concentrations of charge carriers tend to zero; second, the integer quantum Hall effect in graphene is anomalous in that it occurs at half-integer filling factors; and third, the cyclotron mass m(c) of massless carriers in graphene is described by E = m(c)c*2. This two-dimensional system is not only interesting in itself but also allows access to the subtle and rich physics of quantum electrodynamics in a bench-top experiment.