Yet even as researchers have discovered increasingly capable two-dimensional semiconductor materials, one stubborn engineering problem has remained. "For many years, efforts to improve atomically thin transistors have largely focused on discovering better semiconductor materials," said Professor Wen-Hao Chang, the study's corresponding author from NYCU. Silicon technology has benefited from decades of refinement, allowing manufacturers to produce dielectric materials capable of controlling progressively smaller devices. Rethinking How Future Chips Are DesignedThe findings also point to a broader change in the way semiconductor researchers think about transistor design. For decades, much of the effort to improve transistors has centered on discovering better semiconductor materials or making devices smaller.