Metal-Guided Selective Growth of 2D Materials: Demonstration of a Bottom-Up CMOS Inverter

2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) layered materials are promising for future electronic and optoelectronic applications. The realization of large-area electronics and circuits strongly relies on wafer-scale, selective growth of quality 2D TMDs. Here, a scalable method, namely, metal-guided selective growth (MGSG), is reported. The success of control over the transition-metal-precursor vapor pressure, the first concurrent growth of two dissimilar monolayer TMDs, is demonstrated in conjunction with lateral or vertical TMD heterojunctions at precisely desired locations over the entire wafer in a single chemical vapor deposition (VCD) process. Owing to the location selectivity, MGSG allows the growth of p- and n-type TMDs with spatial homogeneity and uniform electrical performance for circuit applications. As a demonstration, the first bottom-up complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor inverter based on p-type WSe₂ and n-type MoSe₂ is achieved, which exhibits a high and reproducible voltage gain of 23 with little dependence on position.