World's first 2D material built computer completely ditches silicon

Researchers at Penn State have developed the world’s first computer built entirely from two-dimensional (2D) materials, completely eliminating the use of silicon. This innovative computer uses complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology based on two different 2D materials: molybdenum disulfide for n-type transistors and tungsten diselenide for p-type transistors. Unlike silicon, which faces performance degradation as devices shrink, these 2D materials maintain exceptional electronic properties even at atomic thickness, offering a promising path for faster, thinner, and more efficient electronics. The team employed metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) to grow large sheets of these 2D materials and fabricated over 1,000 transistors of each type. By fine-tuning fabrication and post-processing steps, they adjusted transistor threshold voltages to build fully functional CMOS logic circuits. The resulting 2D CMOS computer operates at low supply voltages with minimal power consumption and can perform simple logic operations at