MoS₂ radio: detecting radio waves with a two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductor

In this paper, we designed, fabricated and tested a microwave circuit based on a MoS₂ self-switching diode. The MoS₂ thin film (10-monolayers nominal thickness) was grown on a 4 inch Al₂O₃/high-resistivity silicon wafer by chemical vapor deposition process. The Raman measurements confirm the high quality of the MoS₂ over the whole area of the 4 inch wafer. We show experimentally that a microwave circuit based on a few-layers MoS₂ self-switching diode fabricated at the wafer level is able to detect the audio spectrum from amplitude-modulated microwave signals in the band 0.9-10 GHz, i.e. in the frequency range mostly used by current wireless communications. In particular, the 900 MHz band is widely exploited for GSM applications, whereas the 3.6 GHz band has been identified as the primary pioneer band for 5G in the European Union.