Growing The Thinnest Of Semiconductors

For supermodels and semiconductors, it seems that thin is always in. As electronics makers continue to squeeze more components into increasingly smaller spaces, they’re on the lookout for materials that can achieve the ultimate in small—atomic-scale electronic devices. Now, Jiwoong Park and colleagues at Cornell University report an advance toward realizing such materials. They’ve grown sheets of the transition-metal dichalcogenides MoS₂ and WS₂ that are only three atoms thick, but stretch over . . .