CAREER: Activating Glass: Direct Growth of Single-Crystal 2D Semiconductors on Amorphous Glass Under Confinement

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY Modern electronics rely on materials that can precisely control the flow of electricity. Glass is widely used in electronic systems because it is stable, inexpensive, and can be manufactured at large scale. However, glass today plays only a passive role because it cannot support high-quality semiconductor materials needed for computing, memory, and sensing. This project addresses a fundamental scientific challenge: how to create highly ordered electronic materials directly on glass substrates, a completely disordered surface, to enable next-generation substrates. This research focuses specifically on glass substrates and is developing a new approach to grow high-quality semiconductor materials without relying on traditional methods that require a crystalline template. Instead, this project uses carefully designed geometry and growth conditions to control how atoms assemble into ordered structures on glass. By understanding and controlling this process, this project is transforming glass from a passive support into an active platform that can realize high-performance electronic functionality. This work supports the National Science Foundation mission by advancing fundamental knowledge in materials science while enabling new technologies that activate glass substrates as functional components. Potential applications include faster and more energy-efficient devices, improved communication systems, and advanced sensing platforms built directly on glass substrates. The project also includes educational programs that are introducing students to how order can emerge from disorder through hands-on experiments. These efforts are helping train a future workforce specifically in semiconductor technology and more generally in science and engineering. TECHNICAL SUMMARY This project investigates whether deterministic single-crystal growth can be achieved directly on fully amorphous glass substrates without lattice registry. It establishes a new crystallization paradigm based on confinement-driven kinetic control rather than epitaxy, with an exclusive focus on glass which is considered as a next-generation substrate for electronics. Glass presents a uniquely challenging and technologically relevant platform due to its disordered atomic structure, low thermal conductivity, and chemically uniform surface, all of which fundamentally alter nucleation and growth behavior. This research is integrating theory and experiment to construct a framework for confined nucleation and growth on glass. Density functional theory is being used to identify material combinations that generate sufficient Gibbs free energy contrast for selective nucleation on glass surfaces. Systematic kinetic experiments are then examining how confinement geometry modulates nucleation barriers and enables single-domain formation on glass substrates. Growth kinetics are then being mapped as a function of temperature, pressure, and precursor dynamics under conditions specific to glass, where diffusion and thermal transport differ significantly from crystalline or Si substrates. This project also includes validation through fabrication of 2D semiconductor transistors directly on glass substrates and their integration with through-glass vias to realize an active glass interposer platform. The outcomes of this project are establishing a physics-based framework for non-epitaxial crystallization on glass, advancing understanding of nucleation and growth under glass-specific constraints while enabling new directions in glass-based electronic integration and semiconductor science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2544157 | Program: 01002930DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT,01003031DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT,01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Sang-Hoon Bae | Institution: Washington University, SAINT LOUIS, MO | Award Amount: $417,790 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2544157 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2544157.html