ZrTe₂ Compound Dirac Semimetal Contacts\nfor High-Performance MoS₂ Transistors

Abstract

Recent\ninvestigations reveal elemental semimetal (Bi and Sb) contacts\nfabricated with conventional deposition processes exhibit a remarkable\ncapacity of approaching the quantum limit in two-dimensional (2D)\nsemiconductor contacts, implying it might be an optimal option to\nsolve the contact issue of 2D semiconductor electronics. Here, we\ndemonstrate novel compound Dirac semimetal ZrTe₂ contacts\nto MoS₂ constructed by a nondestructive van der Waals (vdW)\ntransfer process, exhibiting excellent ohmic contact characteristics\nwith a negligible Schottky barrier. The band hybridization between\nZrTe₂ and MoS₂ was verified. The bilayer MoS₂ transistor with a 250 nm channel length on a 20 nm thick\nhexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) exhibits an <i>I</i>_ON/<i>I</i>_OFF current ratio over 10⁵ and an on-state current of 259 μA μm^–1. The current results reveal that 2D compound semimetals with vdW\ncontacts can offer a diverse selection of proper semimetals with adjustable\nwork functions for the next-generation 2D-based beyond-silicon electronics.