Computer chips may be heading toward a new kind of precision, one measured not in wires or circuits, but in single layers of atoms. A research team has found that coating an ultrathin chip material with oxygen or fluorine can make plasma processing much safer, giving manufacturers a cleaner way to remove only the top atomic layer without harming what sits underneath.
That matters because silicon, the material that has powered computing for decades, is running into physical limits as engineers try to keep packing more power into smaller devices. The new work does not mean your next laptop or phone will instantly change. Yet it points to a practical manufacturing step that could help future chips become smaller, faster, and more capable.
A tiny material with a big job
At the center of the study is molybdenum disulfide, a material so thin that it is only three atoms thick. Think of it as a microscopic sandwich, with one layer of molybdenum tucked between two layers of sulfur.
This material belongs to a family known as transition metal dichalcogenides. That is a mouthful, but the idea is simple enough. These are extremely thin materials that researchers believe could work alongside silicon in future transistors, the tiny switches that help computers process information.
Why does this matter in everyday life? Better transistors can mean devices that handle more work while using less power. At the end of the day, that could affect everything from phone battery life to the heat coming off a laptop during a long video call.
The plasma problem
To shape future devices, manufacturers may need to remove atoms only from the top sulfur layer of molybdenum disulfide. That sounds simple, but at this scale, it is more like trying to scrape the frosting off a cake without touching the cake itself.
One common tool for this kind of work is plasma. Plasma is an energized state of matter found in the Sun and stars, and in manufacturing, it can be used to knock atoms loose from a surface.
The trouble is control. If the plasma particles hit too softly, the top sulfur atoms stay in place. If they hit too hard, they can damage the molybdenum layer underneath, and that damage could change how the future transistor works.
Oxygen and fluorine make the process safer
Using computer simulations, the researchers found that a surface treatment can widen the safe operating range. On an untreated surface, removing a sulfur atom takes about 30 electronvolts, a small energy unit used to describe particles.
When the surface is treated with fluorine, that number drops to about 10 electronvolts. With oxygen, it drops to about 14 electronvolts. Those numbers may sound small, but in chipmaking they are the difference between careful surgery and accidental damage.
Plasma ions do not all arrive with the same energy. Some hit harder than others. By lowering the energy needed to remove sulfur, the coating gives manufacturers more room to work before the lower layer is put at risk.
Letting chemistry do the work
The clever part is that the process does not rely only on force. Instead, chemistry helps loosen the atoms.
When an ion strikes an oxygen-treated surface, oxygen can combine with sulfur to form sulfur dioxide, a stable gas that can leave the surface more easily. Fluorine acts in a similar way by forming sulfur-fluorine compounds that are easier to remove.
“We are not directly breaking the bonds,” said Yury Polyachenko, a graduate student in chemistry at Princeton University who also worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory during the summer of 2025 and is the study’s lead author. “We are forming some intermediate products, such as sulfur dioxide. This intermediate product is much easier to break off.”
Why chipmakers care
For most people, this may sound far removed from daily life. However, every smoother manufacturing step matters when companies are trying to make chips that are smaller, cooler, and more energy efficient.
Researchers elsewhere are also pushing in this direction. In 2023, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology team reported a method for growing atomically thin transistor materials directly on top of an 8-inch silicon wafer, a step meant to support denser chip designs. In 2025, Penn State researchers reported a working computer built entirely from two-dimensional materials, showing how quickly this field is moving.
The new plasma method fits into that larger race. It does not replace silicon overnight. Instead, it could help engineers combine silicon with ultrathin materials in ways that are easier to manufacture reliably.
What comes next
The team is not claiming the process is ready for factory floors. The next step is to measure how much damage the process causes, not just whether damage happens.
“After that, we want to see whether the same approach works for related materials,” Polyachenko said, referring to future tests that could swap molybdenum for tungsten or sulfur for selenium. That would show whether the idea is a narrow fix or a broader tool for next-generation electronics.
The research team also included Igor Kaganovich and Shoaib Khalid of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, along with Yuri Barsukov, a former member of the lab. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science supported the work, which used major computing resources, including the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center.
A small step toward future chips
This discovery is not about a finished product. It is about learning how to handle atom-thin materials without ruining the delicate layers that make them useful.
That is often how chip breakthroughs happen. First comes the manufacturing trick. Then, if it holds up in testing, engineers will find ways to fold it into real devices.
For now, the finding gives researchers a cleaner path for working with one of the most promising materials in post-silicon electronics. Smaller and more powerful chips still require many more advances, but this one tackles a basic problem at the atomic surface, exactly where tomorrow’s devices may be won or lost.
The official study has been published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
