MoS₂-on-AlN Enables High-Performance MoS₂ Field-Effect Transistors through Strain Engineering

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) has substantial application prospects in the field of electronic devices. The fabrication of devices of excellent quality based on MoS₂ films is an important research direction. In this study, based on the atomic layer deposition technique, large-area MoS₂ films were grown, and top-gate MoS₂-based field-effect transistor arrays were fabricated on four substrates (AlN, GaN, sapphire, and SiO₂). It was found that the interface defects that were introduced by lattice mismatch and roughness of the growth substrate could cause an exponential (10²) drop in mobility. Because of the small lattice mismatch and excellent surface quality, transistors on the AlN substrate have shown an enhanced mobility (10.45 cm² V^-1 s^-1) compared to transistors on the other substrates. This study proves that the AlN substrate is a superior substrate for large-area and high-performance MoS₂ film synthesis. This result can also be applied in higher-level microelectronic systems, such as in digital logic circuit design.