A multinational research team has reported p-type monolayer transistors based on oxygen-doped tungsten diselenide (WSe2) with low contact resistance and high current density. The work, published in Nature Communications, tackles a key bottleneck for 2D semiconductors: metal-induced gap states and insufficient doping during metal deposition have kept p-type on-state currents far below what CMOS circuits require.
By introducing oxygen p-doping into monolayer WSe2, the researchers demonstrated ballistic p-type transistors with improved electrical performance. The approach directly addresses the contact resistance problem that has limited 2D transistors from replacing silicon at sub-1-nm technology nodes. The team includes researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, UC Santa Barbara, and the National University of Singapore.
The results are a step toward extending complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) circuits with 2D materials. While the paper reports promising lab-scale devices, further work will be needed to integrate such contacts into full-scale manufacturing. Still, the demonstration suggests that oxygen doping is a viable route to high-performance p-type 2D transistors for future logic nodes.