(Invited) The Future of Nanoelectronics Devices from a Theoretical Point of View: The Search for New Channel Materials

The search for alternatives to Si in the VLSI technology is based on experimental and theoretical work. Here, we consider only the latter and, looking at a few two-dimensional materials of current interest, we use them as examples to emphasize the difficulties faced by theorists in assessing their potential: Silicene and germanene are examples of materials whose properties suffer from the strong scattering of electrons with flexural acoustic phonons; phosphorene highlights how small inaccuracies of ab initio methods prevent a reliable assessment of transport properties; finally, we consider transition metal dichalcogenides to show how surrounding dielectrics (the substrate and/or a top-gate insulator) depress significantly the carrier mobility and the performance of devices that use these materials as channels.