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Nature Nanotechnology
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Cong Wang

Abstract

Semimetals can establish a low-resistance contact to semiconductors by suppressing metal-induced gap states. Although semimetals like bismuth have enabled an ultralow contact resistance for n-type two-dimensional semiconductors by mitigating metal-induced gap states, achieving a similar performance for p-type two-dimensional counterparts remains a notable hurdle. Here we introduce an ultrathin selenium interfacial layer with the highest work function among elements, effectively reducing the Schottky barrier height at the interface. Critically, the selenium layer interacts with the gold electrode, inducing band hybridization that transforms the contact interface from a semiconductor to a semimetal. This semimetallic characteristic, with its low density of states near the Fermi level, suppresses the formation of detrimental metal-induced gap states within the semiconductor. Applying this band-hybridized semimetallic contact to p-type WSe2 transistors results in a reduction in contact resistance to 540 Ω μm. Furthermore, the devices achieve a saturated ON-state current density of up to 430 μA μm−1 with an 80-nm channel length. This methodology is highly transferable and can be readily applied to other p-type semiconductors, including black phosphorus and carbon nanotubes, offering a scalable and reliable pathway for establishing low-resistance electrical contacts to nanoscale p-type semiconductor devices.

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Fig. 1: Band-hybridized Se contact with a high EWF.
Fig. 2: Electrical characteristics of the band-hybridized Se contact for trilayer WSe2 FETs.
Fig. 3: Variability analysis of the band-hybridized Se contact for trilayer Au/Se-WSe2 FETs.
Fig. 4: Mechanism of band-hybridized Se for low-resistance contact to WSe2.
Fig. 5: Benchmark of band-hybridized Se contact for p-type FETs.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 62425405 to Y.C.), MOST National Key Technologies R&D Programme (grant number 2022YFA1203804 to Y.C.), Research Grant Council of Hong Kong (grant numbers 15301023 and CRS_PolyU502/22 to Y.C.) and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (grant number WZ4X to Y.C.).

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Contributions

Y.C. conceived and supervised the project. C.W. designed the experiments, fabricated the devices and measured the devices. J.G., Z.L., B.H. and Z.Z. contributed to the device fabrications. D.L. and M.Z. carried out the theoretical calculations. S.G. and S.C. performed the TEM measurements. J.Y. performed the SEM and AFM measurements. C.W., J.G., D.L. and Y.C. co-wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Yang Chai.

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Wang, C., Guo, J., Liu, D. et al. Band-hybridized selenium contact for p-type semiconductors.
Nat. Nanotechnol. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02084-y

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