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Wafer-scale epitaxy growth of high-mobility p-type boron carbon nitride

Published: 09/30/2026, 12:00 AM

Nature (2026) Cite this article A long-standing bottleneck in realizing two-dimensional (2D) CMOS technology lies in the lack of high-performance p-type semiconductors1,2,3,4. Strong electron-doping tendencies, orbital localization and pronounced hole scattering have collectively impeded the development of stable, efficient p-type 2D materials. Here we report the epitaxy growth of boron carbon nitride (BCN) as a high-performance p-type semiconductor. By engineering the dehydrogenation and surface reaction pathways of monomethyl ammonia borane (MMAB) and ammonia borane (AB), we overcome a crucial barrier: the spatial and temporal mismatch in the delivery of boron (B), carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) atoms, which disrupts lattice uniformity. The result is a wafer-scale, monolayer 2D BCN in which C atoms and dimers primarily substitute for N sites within a continuously crystallized, locally distorted boron nitride lattice, leading to a sizable bandgap of 1.90 eV. Wafer-scale arrays of p-type BCN FETs exhibit benchmark performance, with a field-effect hole mobility of 100 cm2 V−1 s−1, on-current >0.9 mA μm−1, on–off ratio of 108 and threshold voltage of −0.45 V, surpassing current state-of-the-art p-type 2D semiconductors. Our findings establish BCN as a scalable and stable p-type platform, bridging a critical gap in the materials palette for three-dimensional monolithic integration of complementary electronics. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout The data that support the findings of this study can be found in the paper and the Supplementary Information and are available from the corresponding authors upon request. The DFT calculations were performed using VASP v.6.3.2, which is commercially available at https://www.vasp.at/. The custom scripts and VASP input files generated during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon request. Liu, Y. et al. Promises and prospects of two-dimensional transistors. Nature 591, 43–53 (2021). Article ADS CAS PubMed Google Scholar