Molybdenum News Center

Several mouths ago, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have used a unique nano-optical probe to study the effects of illumination on two-dimensional semiconductors at the molecular level. Working at the Molecular Foundry, a DOE Office of Science User Facility, the scientific team used the “Campanile” probe they developed to make some surprising discoveries about molybdenum disulfide, a member of a family of semiconductors, called “transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), whose optoelectronic properties hold great promise for future nanoelectronic and photonic devices.

2D-TMDCs rival graphene as potential successors to silicon for the next generation of high-speed electronics. Only a single molecule in thickness, 2D-TMDC materials boast superior energy efficiencies and a capacity to carry much higher current densities than silicon.