Exceptional plasticity in the bulk single-crystalline van der Waals semiconductor InSe
Tian‐Ran Wei, Min Jin, Yuecun Wang, Hongyi Chen, Zhiqiang Gao, Kunpeng Zhao, Pengfei Qiu, Zhiwei Shan, Jun Jiang, Rongbin Li, Lidong Chen, Jian He, Xun Shi
Abstract
Inorganic semiconductors are vital for a number of critical applications but are almost universally brittle. Here, we report the superplastic deformability of indium selenide (InSe). Bulk single-crystalline InSe can be compressed by orders of magnitude and morphed into a Möbius strip or a simple origami at room temperature. The exceptional plasticity of this two-dimensional van der Waals inorganic semiconductor is attributed to the interlayer gliding and cross-layer dislocation slip that are mediated by the long-range In-Se Coulomb interaction across the van der Waals gap and soft intralayer In-Se bonding. We propose a combinatory deformability indicator (Ξ) to prescreen candidate bulk semiconductors for use in next-generation deformable or flexible electronics.