Researchers demonstrated two-inch monolayer WS2 or MoS2 single-crystal growth using modified commercial sapphire surfaces.

Researchers from Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other institutions reported a method for wafer-scale growth of single-crystalline two-dimensional semiconductors. The demonstrated materials were monolayer tungsten disulfide, or WS2, and molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2.

The method uses a homo-metal-element surface-modification strategy on commercial C-plane or M-plane sapphire. The cited elements include tungsten or molybdenum and aluminum, corresponding to the semiconductor material and sapphire surface system.

The reported growth scale was two inches. This is a crystal-growth result concerning monolayer semiconductor material on modified sapphire, not a disclosure of commercial chip production, transistor yield, packaged devices, or production-qualified wafer capacity.