Electron counting and a large family of two-dimensional semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a large family of two-dimensional semiconductors based on electron counting, demonstrating their potential for diverse electronic properties and applications in heterojunctions, which could advance 2D device fabrication.

Contribution

It proposes a new family of 2D semiconductors using main group elements and electron counting, expanding the range of available 2D materials.

Findings

Materials cover a wide range of lattice constants and band gaps

Density functional calculations confirm material stability and attainability

Potential for high-level 2D device fabrication

Abstract

Comparing with the conventional semiconductors, the choice of the two dimensional semiconductor (2DSC) materials is very limited. Based on proper electron counting, we propose a large family of 2DSCs, all adopting the same structure and consisting of only main group elements. Using advanced density functional calculations, we demonstrate the attainability of these materials, and show that they cover a large range of lattice constants, band gaps and band edge states, therefore are good candidate materials for heterojunctions. This family of two dimensional materials may pave a way toward fabrication of 2DSC devices at the same thriving level as 3D semiconductors.