Originally inspired by graphene, a new class of atomically thin semiconductor materials - such as molybdenum disulfide - promises to enable electronic and optical devices that are smaller and more efficient than those achievable with conventional semiconductors like silicon. However, operating at such a small scale introduces a significant nanopatterning challenge: Creating well-defined, functional pathways within a two-dimensional material requires a level of precision that pushes the limits of current fabrication techniques.
“There are two basic approaches to creating a ‘landscape’ on a 2D semiconductor sheet to guide the conduction of excitons along preferred paths: Either you introduce some sort of defects that alter the initially uniform structure of the material, which is so far not possible to do with nanometer precision, or you deposit organic molecules on the monolayer, but until now it hasn’t been done in a controlled way, and the randomness of the resulting pattern puts a limitation on the device efficiency,” said study co-author Assistant Professor Irina Martynenko from Skoltech Physics.
The team successfully demonstrated a way of depositing organic dye molecules on a monolayer of molybdenum disulfide using the technique of DNA origami. It involves designing DNA nanostructures approximately 100 nanometers in size that carry dye molecules at predefined positions. The resulting construct is placed on a chip and covered by a 2D semiconductor.
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