--- title: "Breakthrough in Transistor Design Achieved by Researchers" url: https://newscentral.site/breakthrough-in-transistor-design-achieved-by-researchers/ language: en publisher: "News Central Site" section: "Science" published: 2026-10-15T20:40:06.000Z updated: 2026-10-16T00:49:48.221Z id: 8d75b60c-107a-4af5-acc3-effbac4c51d5 source: "Phys.org https://phys.org/news/2026-10-2d-crystal-transistor-built-insulation.html" attribution: "Link to https://newscentral.site/breakthrough-in-transistor-design-achieved-by-researchers/ and name News Central Site when you quote or summarize this story." --- # Breakthrough in Transistor Design Achieved by Researchers A research team has successfully transformed a single two-dimensional crystal into a fully functional transistor with built-in insulation and electrical contacts. A breakthrough in transistor design has been achieved by a team of researchers who successfully transformed a single two-dimensional crystal into a fully functional transistor with built-in insulation and electrical contacts. The conventional approach to building transistors involves using separate materials for carrying current, controlling it, and making electrical connections. However, as semiconductor devices shrink in size, integrating these components becomes increasingly challenging due to their vastly different properties at the atomic scale. A research team led by Director Jo Moon-Ho of the Institute for Basic Science has pioneered a new approach that sidesteps this problem. Instead of fabricating individual components and assembling them into a device, the researchers started with a single layered crystal and chemically converted specific atomic layers and regions into different materials necessary for a transistor. The team's focus on two-dimensional semiconductors is driven by their potential to revolutionize electronics as conventional silicon devices reach their physical limits. Despite over two decades of research, the main hurdle to practical 2D electronics has been integrating these semiconductors with other components rather than improving their performance. By transforming a single crystal into a transistor, the researchers have demonstrated a fundamentally new way of building electronic devices, one that could potentially overcome the challenges associated with scaling down conventional silicon-based transistors. The challenge of creating transistors using 2D materials lies in their unique surface properties. Unlike traditional materials, these semiconductors have few sites where other materials can attach, making it difficult to deposit uniform dielectric layers and low-resistance electrical contacts. To overcome this hurdle, the researchers used a novel approach that leverages the crystal itself as the starting material for all electronic functions. This eliminates the need for separate 2D materials or complex mechanical transfer methods, which are often unsuitable for large-scale production. The team began with multilayer tungsten diselenide (WSe₂), a 2D semiconductor whose electrical properties can be modified by replacing surrounding atoms. By preserving the tungsten framework while selectively replacing these atoms, researchers could alter individual regions without rebuilding the entire crystal. By oxidizing the upper layers of WSe₂ into insulating tungsten oxide (WOₓ), the team created areas with different electronic functions within the same parent crystal. These regions could then be converted through vapor-phase reactions into other materials, such as tungsten disulfide or ditelluride, to achieve semiconducting, insulating, and semimetallic properties. This process allows for the creation of complex devices directly within a single 2D crystal, potentially overcoming scaling challenges associated with traditional transistor design. The researchers behind this breakthrough were able to control the reaction by adjusting the temperature and gas pressure, allowing them to stop the conversion at a precise number of layers. This level of control was achieved at a rate of roughly 0.7 nanometers per WSe₂ monolayer. One of the main challenges in developing two-dimensional semiconductors has been finding suitable materials for dielectrics and electrical contacts. By combining atomic-scale manipulation with modern semiconductor technology, this study addresses that integration challenge. To achieve this, the researchers were able to convert the upper layers of WSe₂ into WOₓ directly above the semiconductor channel. This oxide then served as a gate dielectric without the need for an additional high-k material, forming an insulating layer with an effective thickness below 1 nanometer. The resulting structure enabled the creation of highly efficient transistors, where a mere change of 61.3 millivolts in gate voltage increased the current tenfold. This performance is remarkably close to the theoretical room-temperature limit of about 60 millivolts per decade. The transistors also demonstrated an impressive on/off current ratio exceeding 10 million, showcasing their exceptional switching capabilities. This achievement has significant implications for the development of next-generation electronic devices. The conversion process also improved the electrical contacts, reducing the barrier for charge injection to a fraction of what was observed with direct platinum contacts. This improvement allows charge carriers to enter the semiconductor more efficiently, which is crucial for high-performance electronic devices. To further demonstrate the capabilities of this method, the team constructed a complementary van der Waals inverter using vertically stacked p-type and n-type transistors made from WTe₂ and MoS₂, respectively. The successful voltage inversion showed that the approach can be extended beyond individual transistors toward more complex circuitry. This achievement has significant implications for the development of next-generation electronic devices, which could potentially lead to ultralow-power and ultrascaled semiconductor devices. --- Source: [Phys.org](https://phys.org/news/2026-10-2d-crystal-transistor-built-insulation.html) Published by News Central Site: https://newscentral.site/breakthrough-in-transistor-design-achieved-by-researchers/