We have found that Pt/hBN gate stacks show 500-times-lower leakage current than Au/hBN gate stacks, and that they exhibit a high dielectric strength of at least 25 MV/cm. The data on the leakage current for small devices can be found in Figure 1 below. The rest of data can be found in the paper, available at the link provided.

The similitude with previous technology advancements is fascinating! In the early 2000, many companies experimented with high-k dielectrics as a potential replacement of ultra-thin SiO2 gate dielectric. However, most attempts failed due to the poor compatibility of high-k dielectrics with the adjacent materials. On that time, many experts stated that high-k materials will never make it. In 2004, Intel found that the introduction of high-k gate dielectrics required tuning the composition of the gate electrode, and they shifted from polysilicon to metal. Intel started to commercialize this technology in 2008, and all scaled transistors are now based on the high-k/metal gate technology.

Now, when many people thought that hBN is a bad gate dielectric, we find that selecting the proper metal electrode enables its use as gate dielectric in field-effect transistors with MoS2 channels. And this is very interesting because MoS2 and hBN are very good friends: they can form a clean van der Waals interface for improved reliability.