Monolayer Molybdenum Disulfide Switches for 6G Communication Systems

Researchers have developed a novel monolayer molybdenum disulfide switch for 6G communication applications, a semiconductor device that has attracted considerable attention, making it possible to process digital signals significantly faster and very energy-efficient.

Professor Myungsoo Kim (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UNIST) has developed low-power, high-speed analog switches in collaboration with researchers from the United States, France, and Israel. Analog switches are solid-state semiconductor devices that can selectively pass or block wireless signals. Their findings have been published in the June 2022 issue of Nature Electronics.

(Credit: Myungsoo Kim/Nature Electronics)

To better support wireless communications, such as autonomous driving and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) using 6G (sixth generation wireless communication technology), the power consumption of communication devices must be reduced. The research team noted that conventional analog and radio frequency (RF) switches based on solid-state diode or transistor devices are unstable and consume energy during switching events, as well as in a standby or idle on and off states.

Using THz photonics devices, several modulations were tested to evaluate the response of the molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) device toward the IEEE 802.15.3d standard. Since 6G communication technologies can be integrated with many application scenarios, they must be versatile.

In this study, the team reports on the application of nanoscale nonvolatile analog switches based on monolayer MoS₂ for 6G data communications.

According to the team, these switches exhibit low insertion loss and high isolation up to 480 GHz due to their nanoscale vertical and lateral dimensions, resulting in low resistance and low capacitance in the on and off states, respectively. In addition, these devices achieve data rates of 100 Gbit s^-1 (in compliance with the IEEE 6G high-frequency component standard) with low error vector magnitude (EVM), low bit error rate (BER), and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

(Credit: Myungsoo Kim/Nature Electronics)

The research team also demonstrated the high performance of MoS₂ switches through eye-diagram and constellation diagram measurements using various complex modulation methods. They anticipate that MoS₂-based non-volatile analog switches could become an important component of high-data-rate 6G data communications and related systems. The research is also highlighted in a "Research Brief" in Nature Electronics, which shows that solid-state electronic switches based on molybdenum disulfide atomic sheets have very high data transfer rates in the 6G communication band.

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