There's plenty of PhD's working in semiconductor materials and devices. The US Gov is currently funding lots of research into so called 2D materials, e.g. graph

There's plenty of PhD's working in semiconductor materials and devices. The US Gov is currently funding lots of research into so called 2D materials, e.g. graphene and MoS2. Personally, I'm skeptical that any of it will ever find anything more than tangential commercial application, e.g. graphene as a semi-transparent, high mobility conductor.