Large-area 2D TMD layers for mechanically reconfigurable electronic devices

Advances in modern electronic technologies have been driven toward combining the continued miniaturization of device components and their deterministic integration onto unconventional platforms. This effort aims at achieving electronic devices of various form factors with exotic functionalities, which has been foreseen to be impossible with any traditional approaches. Amongst a variety of 'futuristic' technologies, mechanically reconfigurable devices which can be reversibly stretched, twisted, and folded under severe mechanical deformation and harsh operational conditions offer an enormous amount of unprecedented opportunities. Traditional device manufacturing schemes have relied on three-dimensional silicon (Si)-based wafers, which are intrinsically bulky and rigid, requiring highly complicated and unstainable fabrication steps for the inclusion of such mechanical deformability. This fundamental challenge invokes innovations in materials design and processing, triggering to explore a new type of electronic materials that can intrinsically possess superior materials properties even at extremely small length-scales. Recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) offer a rich set of unparalleled properties in a wide range of optical, electrical, and mechanical aspects unattainable with Si. Moreover, they offer uniquely suited advantages for mechanically reconfigurable electronics owing to their extremely large mechanical tolerance and small thickness coupled with van der Waals attraction-enabled relaxed assembly requirement. In this review, we report an extensive overview of up-to-date progress in exploring 2D TMD layers for mechanically reconfigurable electronic devices, particularly focusing on large-area devices by noting their technological and practical relevance. We systematically overview the material property suitability of 2D TMD layers for reconfigurable electronics and their fabrication and integration strategies as well as proof-of-concept demonstrations available in the literature. We also discuss current technical challenges associated with developing high-performance 2D TMD-based devices and offer forward-looking perspectives for this emerging technology.