It supports high current density, has a tuneable bandgap, forms atomically-thin wafers, is compatible with silicon – all of which suggest it could be a substrate for 2D ICs.
Fabrication challenges can be skated over for now as I drop my scheme into the PM’s shell-like.My wheeze is to introduce a 50% tax credit on MoS2 startups’ R&D costs and capex plus 75% income tax relief for investors in MoS2 seed capital investments plus loss relief and capital gains deferral.
HMG will pay for any licences from imec which MoS2 startups will require and KAUST has agreed to collaborate on technology development.
Hopefully we can make it sufficiently attractive to add some international investors and top-class foreign research talent to our own superb scientists in the field.
That’s the pitch to the PM and fortunately my cred as a reliable techie still holds good with him and he’s gone for it.
Naturally, applications to qualify for the scheme’s financial benefits have to be carefully vetted by me – ostensibly on the criteria of technical feasibility and research history but actually on the scale of the inducements offered to my goodself.
Investors and university groups are queuing up to take advantage. Startups are proliferating like billy-o.
For once, the government’s perennial PR claim that we are a world super-power in some area or other might seem plausible.
But, whether we crack 2D ICs or not, MoS2 is looking like a nice little earner for Yours Truly.
