Quantum tunnelling and leakage current across two-dimensional materials.

Leakage current across monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is higher than across monolayer MoS2 and WS2 because its thickness is about 50% lower, despite hBN’s nearly three-times larger bandgap.

• Why it matters: Ultrascaled electronics using two-dimensional materials need reliable leakage-current behavior, but how thickness, defects, and electrode roughness shape it is not well understood.
• What they did: They measured leakage current for hBN, MoS2, and WS2 at nanoscale and device level across different thicknesses, compared with industrial SiO2/n++Si, and used TCAD modeling plus density functional theory.
• The result: They found bottom-electrode surface roughness strongly changes leakage current under applied electric field, bandgap and defect density govern multilayers, thickness (electrode-to-electrode distance) dominates monolayers, and hBN leakage is equivalent to SiO2 films of different thicknesses for predicting device performance and reliability.

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