Radiation Resilient Two-Dimensional Electronics

Limitations in cloud-based computing have prompted a paradigm shift toward all-in-one “edge” devices capable of independent data sensing, computing, and storage. Advanced defense and space applications stand to benefit immensely from this due to their need for continual operation in areas where maintaining remote oversight is difficult. However, the extreme environments relevant to these applications necessitate rigorous testing of technologies, with a common requirement being hardness to ionizing radiation. Two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) has been noted to enable the sensing, storage, and logic capabilities necessary for all-in-one edge devices. Despite this, the investigation of ionizing radiation effects in MoS₂-based devices remains incomplete. In particular, studies on gamma radiation effects in MoS₂ have been largely limited to standalone films, with few device investigations; to the best of our knowledge, no explorations have been made into gamma radiation effects on the sensing and memory capabilities of MoS₂-based devices. In this work, we have used a statistical approach to study high-dose (1 Mrad) gamma radiation effects on photosensitive and programmable memtransistors fabricated from large-area monolayer MoS₂. Memtransistors were divided into separate groups to ensure accurate extraction of device characteristics pertaining to baseline performance, sensing, and memory before and after irradiation. All-MoS₂ logic gates were also assessed to determine the gamma irradiation impact on logic implementation. Our findings show that the multiple functionalities of MoS₂ memtransistors are not severely impacted by gamma irradiation even without dedicated shielding/mitigation techniques. We believe that these results serve as a foundation for more application-oriented studies going forward.