† Corresponding author. E-mail:
Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have gained considerable attention because of their novel properties and great potential applications. The flakes of TMDCs not only have great light absorption from visible to near infrared, but also can be stacked together regardless of lattice mismatch like other two-dimensional (2D) materials. Along with the studies on intrinsic properties of TMDCs, the junctions based on TMDCs become more and more important in applications of photodetection. The junctions have shown many exciting possibilities to fully combine the advantages of TMDCs, other 2D materials, conventional and organic semiconductors together. Early studies have greatly enriched the application of TMDCs in photodetection. In this review, we investigate the efforts in photodetectors based on the junctions of TMDCs and analyze the properties of those photodetectors. Homojunctions based on TMDCs can be made by surface chemical doping, elemental doping and electrostatic gating. Heterojunction formed between TMDCs/2D materials, TMDCs/conventional semiconductors and TMDCs/organic semiconductor also deserve more attentions. We also compare the advantages and disadvantages of different junctions, and then give the prospects for the development of junctions based on TMDCs.
Since the discovery of graphene by Geim and Novoselov,[1,2] many unique properties[3–7] have emerged, resulting in considerable attention on layered materials.[8–11] Many efforts have been put into the fundamental physical researches on properties of layered materials for next generation of electronics and optoelectronics. Until now there have already been hundreds of layered materials that can be thinned down to monolayers and retain their stability.[3] Each layered material has its own merits and demerits. For example, the carrier mobility in black phosphorus (BP) is higher than that in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), but TMDCs have larger light absorption compared with BP in visible range.
TMDCs have the general formula MX2 where M is a transition metal (such as Mo, W) and X is a chalcogen atom (such as S, Se, Te).[12–15] The atoms forming bounds are arranged into planes (layers). The layers are combined by van der Waals interactions to form bulk crystals.[16] The weak out-of-plane interactions allow the isolation of single layers by micromechanical exfoliation.
Crystals of TMDCs have been investigated for more than five decades.[16,17] However, only in past decade, the thin layers of TMDCs were set off an upsurge, where many interesting properties were observed, such as charge density wave, super-conductivity, variation of band structure, and so on.[12,18,19] Among them, the variation of band structure is prominent in optical properties. For example, the bandgaps of TMDCs change from indirect to direct when the TMDCs are thinned down to monolayers. The direct bandgap leads to increased probability for photon to generate electron-hole pairs which results in better light absorptions. Moreover the bandgaps of thin layered TMDCs rely on the number of layers,[12,13,20–24] which allows the absorption of light at different wavelength. Due to the van der Waals interactions between layers, we can also stack different types of TMDC flakes regardless of lattice mismatching to have different wavelength light absorption.[25]
Earlier, photodetectors based on field-effect transistor (FET) structure of TMDCs have been studied[26–31] and have shown excellent performances, such as the highest photoresponsivity of 880 A·W−1 based on monolayer MoS2.[31] There have already been many reviews.[24,25,32–36] Because the built-in electric field can effectively separate photogenerated electron–hole pairs, the junctions of TMDCs have gained more attentions for optoelectronics in these years. With the rapid development of the photodetectors based on the junctions of TMDCs, it is time to review the recent achievements. In this review, we mainly present photodetectors based on junctions of TMDCs flakes utilizing photoconductive effect and photovoltaic effect. Firstly the underlying physics of photodetection based on P-N junctions are briefly introduced. We then will discuss and compare the different kinds of junctions based on TMDCs (including techniques and performances). After that, we conclude the advantages and disadvantages of different junctions. Finally we give the prospects for the future developments of junctions based on TMDCs.
Different materials normally have different work functions and Fermi levels. When junctions are formed between p type and n type materials, the band structures will change due to the alignment of the Fermi levels. The conduction and valance band edge of p type materials will bend down. On the contrary, the conduction and valance band edge of n type materials will bend up. Then the energy barrier will be generated between the two materials.
In the photoconductive effect, when the photon energy is higher than the bandgap, photon absorptions generate extra electron–hole pairs. The photogenerated electrons and holes can be drifted in opposite directions by built-in electric field and external source-drain voltage, which greatly reduces recombination of electron–hole pairs and generates photocurrent (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 1. (a) Band alignment of PN junction under photoconductive mode. (b) Band alignment of PN junction under photovoltaic mode. |
In the photovoltaic effect, photocarriers are also generated in the same way as the photoconductive effect. However, the difference lies in that photogenerated electron–hole pairs are separated only by built-in electric filed rather than external field Vds. The built-in electric field generally exists in PN junctions or Schottky junctions. The built-in electric field can effectively separate electrons and holes, which leads to a sizeable short-current Isc at Vds = 0. Moreover, when the circuit is open, photocarriers will be accumulated on both sides, and open circuit voltage Voc can be obtained (Fig.
There are two operating modes for the PN junction photodetectors: photoconductive mode (the photodetectors work under external bias, Fig.
To facilitate comparison of the photodetectors, we mainly focus on the following figures of merits of photodetectors based on junctions: external quantum efficiency (EQE), responsivity (R), specific detectivity (D*), and response time (τ).
External quantum efficiency is a ratio between the number of the charge carriers generated and the number of incident photons on photodetectors. It depends on both the absorption of light and collection of the charges. Responsivity is the ratio between the photocurrent and the incident light power density on photodetectors, which implies the achievable electrical signal under certain illumination. Specific detectivity is equal to the reciprocal of noise-equivalent power, normalized per square root of the sensor’s area and frequency bandwidth, which indicates the measure of detector sensitivity. The time response of detectors is measured between 10% and 90% of the final output signal, either on the rising or falling edge.
In conventional semiconductors, homojunctions are the semiconductor interfaces that occur at the similar semiconductor materials with equal bandgaps and different doping. Similarly, homojunctions exist at the interface of 2D materials such as graphene,[37–39] WSe2,[40–43] and black phosphorus.[44] In conventional semiconductors, elemental doping is the most common way to form the homojunctions. However, there are three ways to modulate the carrier type of TMDCs to create homojunctions. The first one is to change the surface properties via chemical treatment.[45–48] The second one is to change the properties of the single-crystalline TMDCs by elemental doping.[49,50] The homojunctions can also be created by electrostatic gating except for doping.[40–43] In the following, we will review the recent development concerning the homojunctions created by these three methods respectively.
In 2012, Hui et al. obtained p-doped WSe2 using physisorbed NO2. However, the doping decays almost within an hour because of the weak physisorption process.[51] Next year they realized n-doping of WSe2 and MoS2 by Pstassium, which could decrease the contact resistance.[45] Surface chemical doping is demonstrated to lead to the conduction transition of thin TMDC layers. Lately, lateral homojunction devices based on surface chemical doping were presented by Choi et al. in Fig.
![]() | Fig. 2. (color online) (a) Lateral device schematic diagram of PN junction by AuCl3 chemical dopant.[46] (b) Ids–Vds characteristics measured in different gate configurations.[46] (c) EQE and D* with respect to the wavelength of light at Vds = +1.5 V and Vg = 0, 40 V and −40 V.[46] (d) Vertical PN junction schematic with CHF3 plasma-treated MoS2 layers.[52] (e) Jds–Vds characteristics of CHF3 plasma-treated PN junctions.[52] (f) EQE under different wavelength of light.[52] |
The Au nanoaggregates can form due to the reduction of
The log-plotted Ids–Vds curves under different gate configurations show the reverse current can be decreased with increasing Vg, which is very useful for photodetectors. The large tunable conductance can be attributed to the gating tuning Fermi surface towards or backwards the valance band, which changes the hole transport. Meanwhile, the curves in Fig.
Figure
Another example presented here is the MoS2 P–N junctions fabricated by CHF3 plasma doping.[52] As shown in Fig.
In 2016, Lei et al. fabricated planer p–n junctions based on 2D InSe by making use of the long pair electrons found in most of 2D metal chalcogenides rather than relying on lattice defects and physisorption methods.[48] Via a Lewis acid-base reaction, the long pair electrons of n type InSe can react with Ti4+ to form p type coordination complexes. Moreover the conduction type conversion in other 2D materials can also be realized via Lewis acids.
To conclude, surface chemical doping is an effective way to prepare photodetectors based on the homojunctions of TMDCs without influencing the sensitivity of the photodetectors. Not only under photoconductive mode but also under photovoltaic mode, the homojunctions have shown higher EQE than the intrinsic TMDCs. Moreover chemical surface doping can also be used to decrease the contact resistance between TMDCs and metal. However, the properties of the homojunctions of TMDCs made by surface chemical doping can easily be affected by external environment. Thus the stability of these devices is rather poor.
To have more stable and controllable PN junction, elemental doping has been used to create the homojunctions. Practical applications require substitution of host atoms with dopants, where the doping is secured and stabilized by covalent bonding inside the lattice. Suh et al.[49] realized stable P-type doping in bulk MoS2 by substitutional niobium (Nb) and achieved degenerate hole density of ∼ 3×1019 cm−3. In order to form p-type MoSe2, Jin et al. also used Nb with five valance electrons to replace Mo which has six valance electrons.[50] Via Nb doping, n-type MoSe2 single crystal can be successfully converted to p-type (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 3. (color online) (a) Schematic diagram of Nb-doping for converting n-MoSe2 to p-MoSe2. (b) Ids–Vds characteristics measured in different gate configurations. The insets: optical image and schematic of the vertical homojunctions based on MoSe2. (c) Jd–Vds curves under different laser powers. The inset: short circuit current and open circuit voltage as a function of PLaser. (d) EQE and D* with respect to the laser power under different Vds.[50] |
The fabricated p–n junction exhibits typical rectification properties, as shown in Fig.
The elemental doping is superior in terms of versatility and stability over surface chemical treatment based on absorption or intercalation of volatile species. However, the elemental doping is more suitable for TMDC bulk materials rather than very few layered materials. In order to fabricate PN junctions based on the few-layer TMDCs, mechanical exfoliation is often essential, which can induce uncertainty factors such as the thicknesses and the resistance between the flakes. Thus, the current method is not suitable for practical application. Recently, Kim et al. realized phosphorus doping in monolayer and bilayer MoS2 by laser.[54] This approach can be controlled effectively by varying the laser irradiation power and time. However, more solutions of elemental doping in thin layers are still needed. We expect to realize PN homojunctions based on layered TMDCs through the elemental doping during the CVD growth, which is important for the application of TMDCs.
Unlike other TMDCs such as MoS2, MoSe2, and WS2, WSe2 has been demonstrated to be ambipolar transport.[40–42,55] The carrier type of WSe2 can be controlled through electrostatic gating. The homojunction based on WSe2 has been created successfully by this method.[40]
The schematic diagram of the locally-gated junction is presented in Fig.
![]() | Fig. 4. (color online) (a) Device schematic diagram. (b) The log plotted Ids–Vg curve was measured under Vds = 500 mV. The color gradient implies the transition between hole- and electron-doping. Inset shows the data on a linear scale. (c) Color maps of Ids under different Vlg, Vrg and Vds which suggest the types of the junctions. (d) Ids–Vds characteristics under different illumination wavelength. The inset shows the responsivity (R) under Vds = −1 V and Vds = 0.[40] |
In Fig.
Then we focus on the photoresponse of the PN junction formed by electrical gating. The maximum responsivity is 0.7 mA·W−1 at Vds = −1 V and 532 nm illuminations. Meanwhile the EQE reaches a maximum value of 0.1%. In addition, the response time is in the order of 10 ms. Though the EQE here is lower compared with the two doping methods mentioned above, locally electrostatic gating is still a novel way to tune the junctions and control their electrical properties.
To conclude, the homojunction photodetectors based on TMDCs have been introduced, which can be realized by three different ways: surface chemical doping, elemental doping and electrostatic gating. Compared with intrinsic TMDCs, photodetectors based on homojunctions can largely improve the EQE and R. Meanwhile homojunctions are fabricated by only one kind of TMDCs, which makes them promising as detectors for special wavelength applications from visible to near infrared.
In contrast to homojunctions, heterojunction is the semiconductor interface that occurs between two dissimilar materials with unequal bandgaps. Flakes of TMDCs can be placed on conventional semiconductor materials, organic semiconductor or on other 2D materials by ways such as CVD, mechanical exfoliation and transfer and so on. Due to the unique layer thickness dependence of the bandgaps, the heterojunctions can also be made of only single TMDCs with two different layer thickness.
Compared with heterojunctions based on two different 2D materials, it is easier and more feasible to combine a 2D layered material with conventional semiconductor materials such as MoS2/Si,[57–62] WSe2/InAs,[63] MoS2/GaAs,[64] and MoS2/GaN.[65]
The MoS2/Si heterojunctions have been widely investigated.[57–62] Most of such junctions were fabricated by mechanical exfoliation and transfer.[57–60] Esmaeili-Rad et al. fabricated heterojunction of MoS2/a-Si and they obtained the photoresponsivity of 210 mA/W at green light.[57] Vertical MoS2/p-Si heterojunction was fabricated by transferring and the high photoresponsivity of 7.2 A/W was obtained.[60] In order to have large scale such heterojunctions, Wang et al.[61] and Hao et al.[62] fabricated the MoS2/Si heterojunctions by magnetron sputtering.
Figure
![]() | Fig. 5. (color online) (a) Device schematic of the MoS2/Si heterojunction photodetector.[61] (b) Schematic illustration shows the separation of the photocarriers under illumination.[61] (c) Photoresponse characteristics measured under different light intensities of 808 nm laser.[59] (d) Responsibility and specific detectivity with respect to the light intensity.[61] (e) Schematic structure of MoS2/GaAs heterojunction.[64] (f) Current density-voltage curves of MoS2/GaAs heterojunction under dark and illumination.[64] |
The Isc and Voc increase with the increased light intensity in Fig.
The rising and decaying time of the MoS2/Si heterojunctions were calculated to be 3 µs and 40 µs, which is by far the reported fastest response in TMDCs heterojunctions. The fast response is directly related with the structure and can be attributed to the following reasons: the strong build-in electric field which can efficiently separate photocarriers; the vertically standing layered structure of MoS2 layers which offers high-speed paths; thin SiO2 between Si and MoS2 which serves as a passivation layer to reduce the interface defects.
Lately, Xu et al. developed MoS2/GaAs heterojunctions which have wide response band width from ultraviolet to visible light.[64] In order to decrease the dark current, h-BN was inserted into the interface between MoS2 and GaAs. Owing to h-BN, the detectivity can reach 1.9 × 1014 Jones which is even higher than that of MoS2/Si heterojunction.[61] MoS2/GaN heterojunctions have also been prepared by Ruzmetov et al. via power vaporization technique and show very high-quality van der Waals interface.[65]
The MoS2/Si heterojunctions show not only high specific detectivity but also short response time.[61] The photodetectors based on MoS2/GaAs heterojunctions have wider photoresponse band width. The efforts above confirm that combining 2D TMDCs with conventional semiconductor technology is a promising way to make high performances PN heterostructural photodetectors.
Compared with conventional bulk semiconductor, much cheaper organic semiconductor materials including pentacene,[67,68] C8-BTBT,[69–71] CuPc,[72] and PTCDA[73] have also enriched the design of heterojunction based on TMDCs.
A lot of efforts have been made to epitaxially grow organic semiconductor thin film on 2D materials such as graphene, BN, and MoS2. He et al. grew high-quality few layer C8-BTBT on graphene and BN via van der Waals epitaxy. The thickness of C8-BTBT can be well controlled down to monolayer.
Lately the heterojunctions based on monolayer MoS2 and p-type C8-BTBT in Fig.
Because of the weak van der Waals interactions, we can stack any two kinds of 2D materials together in order to form heterojunctions by mechanical exfoliation and transfer regardless of the lattice mismatch, which will give us wide variety selections of layered materials. A lot of efforts have been made to stack vertical heterojunctions of 2D TMDCs by mechanical exfoliation and transfer as shown in heterojunctions such as MoS2/WS2,[74,75] MoS2/WSe2,[76–82] MoS2/MoSe2,[83] MoS2/MoTe2,[84] MoSe2/WSe2,[85] and so on. Although such vertical heterojunctions show very good performance in photodetection, the yield and efficiency of making such devices is very low.
In order to reduce the steps of mechanical exfoliation and transfer, Cheng et al. combine physical vapor deposition process, mechanical exfoliation, and transfer together.[86] However, the efficiency and the quality of junctions still have not been improved much.
Since MoS2 layers were grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD),[87–89] CVD has been regarded as a feasible and efficient way to directly fabricate heterojunctions on a large scale. Moreover, CVD-grown devices showed stronger interlayer interaction compared with their transferred counterparts.
In 2014, Gong et al.[90] grew both vertical and lateral MoS2/WS2 heterojunctions by CVD. As the FET, the vertical MoS2/WS2 heterojunctions have very high ON/OFF ratio of 106 and the estimated mobility is in the range of 15 to 34 cm2·V−1·s−1, which is faster than MoS2/WS2 made by mechanical transfer (0.51 cm2·V−1·s−1). The high mobility can be attributed to the clean interface between WS2 and MoS2, which reduces the unwanted defects between layers to improve the charge transfer. Meanwhile, the lateral MoS2/WS2 heterojunctions have been demonstrated to be intrinsic monolayer PN junctions without external electrostatic gating.
Afterwards scalable production of few-layer MoS2/WS2 vertical heterojunction array was reported by Xue et al.[91]
The few-layer MoS2/WS2 vertical heterojunctions (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 7. (color online) (a) Optical micrograph of the MoS2/WS2 vertical heterojunction device.[91] (b) Raman spectra of MoS2, WS2 and MoS2/WS2.[91] (c) Optical image of vertical MoS2/WS2 heterojunctions grown by chemical vapor deposition.[92] (d) I–V measurement across a MoS2/WS2 heterointerface.[92] |
In the same year, Li et al. realized the controlled epitaxial growth of lateral WSe2/MoS2 heterojunction.[94] WSe2 was grown on c-plane sapphire substrates through van der Waals epitaxy and then MoS2 was epitaxially grown at the edge of WSe2. The atomically sharp transition in compositions at junctions can be achieved through precisely controlling the two-step epitaxial growth. Very recently, Choudhary et al.[92] reported large-area (> 2 cm2) vertical MoS2/WS2 heterojunctions grown by chemical vapor deposition. The heterojunctions show diode-like current rectification, which means them to be high-quality van der Waals PN junctions (Fig.
To conclude, although mechanical exfoliation and transfer are still widely used to stack two kinds of 2D materials, CVD techniques have been demonstrated to be a reliable way to fabricate large scale vertical and lateral heterojunctions of TMDCs which are more promising for application. Meanwhile, some new methods also appear. Tan et al. achieved 2D semiconductor hetero-nanostructures by the epitaxial growth in liquid phase at room temperature.[95] Mahjouri–Samani et al. fabricated array of lateral MoSe2/MoS2 heterojunction by lithographic patterning and controllable conversion of exposed MoSe2 to MoS2, which also provides some new ideas for device fabrication.[96]
Furchi et al.[77] fabricated vertical stacks of WSe2/MoS2 exactly by mechanical exfoliation and transfer. The EQE is a low value of about 1.5%. A much higher performance in similar vertical WSe2/MoS2 heterojunctions was reported by Cheng et al. (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 8. (color online) (a) Schematic of vertical WSe2/MoS2 heterojunction; (b) Ids–Vds curves measured in the dark and under the illumination whose wavelength is 514 nm and power is 5 µW. The inset shows response of the current with respect to periodic on/off of the illumination; (c) EQE under different power of 514 nm and 633 nm laser at Vds = 0 and Vg = 0.[86] |
The vertical WSe2/MoS2 heterojunctions have obvious open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current under laser illumination (514 nm, 5 μW) (Fig.
More recently, in the MoS2/WSe2 heterojunction, the ultrafast electron transfer from WSe2 to MoS2 sheet was demonstrated to be 470 fs and a 99% efficiency upon optical excitation. This implies MoS2/WSe2 heterojunction could have big potential for high-speed photodetectors.[82]
In addition to vertical heterojunctions, lateral 2D heterojunctions have also emerged. Lateral heterojunctions based on TMDCs are commonly fabricated such as MoSe2/MoS2,[96,97] MoSe2/WSe2,[98] WS2/MoS2,[90] WS2/WSe2,[97] WSe2/MoS2.[94]
Duan et al. realized the lateral epitaxial growth of WS2/WSe2 heterojunctions (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 9. (color online) (a) Optical image of lateral WS2/WSe2 heterojunction.[97] (b) Ids–Vds characteristics in the dark and under laser illumination (514 nm, 30 nW). The inset shows the photocurrent response under periodic on/off laser illumination.[97] (c) Color-coded rendering of the real space imaging of band profile plotted in terms of log(dI/dV) in monolayer-bilayer WSe2.[99] (d) Band alignment in monolayer-bilayer WSe2 heterojunctions.[99] (e) Selective subset of log(dI/dV) spectra. The green and red arrows represent valance and conduction band of the interface states.[99] |
Moreover, due to the thickness dependence of bandgap and band edges of TMDCs, a novel heterojunctions have appeared, which consist of different layers of the same TMDCs. Interlayer states can exist in these heterojunctions such as monolayer-bilayer WSe2 heterojunctions[99] and monolayer-multilayer MoS2 heterojunction.[100,126] Zhang et al. studied interlayer states between monolayer and bilayer WSe2 by low-temperature scanning tunneling microcopy and spectroscopy (STM/S). The interlayer states have a gap value of 0.8 eV as shown in spectrum #13 and spectrum #14 of Fig.
To conclude, along with development of different techniques, large scale vertical and lateral heterojunctions have been demonstrated and they have exhibited some excellent properties such as the fast response time which is less than 100 μs. Heterojunctions which consist of different layers of the same TMDCs are also greatly promising for new design of photodetectors. Different structures provide a more solid foundation for more complex structures such as PIN junctions and quantum well structures. However, it is still not good enough for applications. For example, the area of heterojunctions with higher quality is not larger enough and EQE is still very low. Hence, the fabrication and performances of TMDC/TMDC heterojunctions all need to be improved.
Though TMDCs have the advantage of strong light absorption, applications based on TMDCs are limited by the natures such as low carrier mobility compared with graphene[2,5,101] and few-layer black phosphorus.[102–104] Thus, in order to make devices with better performance, a native way is to combine good properties of TMDCs and the advantages of other 2D materials by stacking their layers together.
The approach has already been demonstrated by Deng et al.[105] The MoS2/BP heterojunctions combine high carrier mobility of BP with strong light absorption of MoS2. The heterojunctions show high responsivity of 418 mA·W−1, but low EQE of 0.3%. Due to built-in electric field, the photocarriers can be effectively separated and then the photoelectrons are injected into BP layer, rather than trapped in MoS2.
More recently, the similar study of WSe2/BP heterojunctions (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 10. (color online) (a) Device schematic diagram and optical image of WSe2/BP heterojunction. (b) and (c) Ids–Vds characteristics under different Vg. The insets show the rectification ratio with respect to Vg. (d) Relations between EQE and power of laser under Vg = −40 V and Vg = 31 V.[106] |
Although the junctions have shown excellent properties, there are still many methods to improve performances by using graphene as electrodes to reduce the influence of barrier,[112,113] facilitating the carrier collection by designing a vertical sandwiched structure[76,113,114] and using BN as a dielectric layer to improve interface and increase the reflection between the layers.[56,115]
Early Luo et al. has proven the response time of photodetectors based on InSe can be decreased to 120 μs by using graphene as electrodes, which is about 40 times faster than the detectors using metal electrodes.[112] Lee et al. fabricated vertical MoS2/WSe2 heterojunction by using top and bottom graphene electrodes (Fig.
![]() | Fig. 11. (color online) (a) Schematic diagram of MoS2/WSe2 junction sandwiched between top and bottom graphene electrodes.[76] (b) The relationship between EQE and excitation energy.[76] (c) Possible existence of the interfaces between materials. (d) Photocurrent with respect to laser power.[115] |
Except using graphene as electrodes, in order to improve the performances of TMDCs, Wasala et al. investigated the effects of BN on the optical properties of MoS2.[115] As shown in Fig.
In conclusion, completely vertical structure can reduce the transport channel length, which can greatly enhance the photoresponse speed of photodetectors. Moreover, using graphene electrodes and BN reflection layer have been demonstrated to be promising methods to improve photocurrent response. Combing those methods, high-speed and highly sensitive photodetector could be realized by stacking of TMDCs and other two-dimensional materials.
Figure
![]() | Table 1.
Summary of literature data for photodetectors based on two-dimensional TMDCs. The table contains the configuration, the fabrication technology, mode, and some benchmark parameters (external quantum efficiency (EQE), responsivity (R), specific detectivity (D*), rise time (τr)). . |
This review provides an overview of the recent development in photodetectors based on junctions of TMDCs from structures, fabrications and performances. Owing to the built-in electric field in those junctions, the photogenerated electrons and holes can be more effectively separated. So compared with photodetectors based on FET type of intrinsic TMDCs, photodetectors based on junctions of TMDCs show many advantages (such as lager responsivity or faster response speed) as shown in Table
Homojunctions can be created by the following three methods: surface chemical doping, elemental doping and electrostatic gating. Although surface chemical doping is suitable for thin layers of TMDCs, the homojunctions based on the surface chemical doping are easy to be affected by the external environment. Elemental doping is a fesiable way for vertical stable homojunctions with high performance. Although electrostatic gating can also be used to create homojunctions, the EQE of these junctions is still very low. Because of the limination of charge mobility, lateral homojunctions fabricated by surface chemical doping and electrostaic show slow photoresponse. However, homojunctions are based on the similiar materials, which makes them easier to realize the sensitive detection of special wavelength.
Heterojunctions can be fabricated by mechanical exfoliation and transfer, CVD and some other methods. Compared with mechanical exfoliation and transfer, CVD method has been demonstrated to be the most effective and promising method to obtain large scale heterojunctions based on TMDCs with atomically sharp interface. Moreover, CVD-grown junctions showed stronger interlayer interaction compared with transferred counterparts.
In vertical heterojunctions, using graphene as top and bottom electrodes can effectively shorten the vertical transport distance of photogenerated carriers, which reduces the response time by several orders of magnitude. The photoresponse can be stongly enhanced using BN as the reflection layer. Taking the advantages of graphene and BN, the heterojunciton photodetectors should have potential appliacations in high speed and weak signal photodetections.
Photodetectors with wide response spectrum are important in many applications. Heterojunctions can combine TMDCs and other semiconductor materials with different absorption wavelength together. MoS2/GaAs heterojunctions have been already demonstrated to have wide spectrum response from ultraviolet to visible light. Thus by selecting two appropriate materials in heterojunctions, it has great potential to realize from ultraviolet to far infrared wider response spectrum photodetectors or multicolor photodetectors.
Moreover, in TMDCs, spin and valley degrees of freedom are intimately coupled due to inversion symmetry breaking together with strong spin–orbit interaction, which has also attracted a great deal of interest.[118] By circularly polarized optical pumping, spin-valley coupled polarization can be generated,[119] which has been observed in optoeletronic devices based on MoS2[120] and WSe2.[121,122] It should be of great significance to introduce spin-polarization and valley-polarization in photodetectors based on junctions of TMDCs.
With the development of TMDCs, different types of junctions based on these materials have been demonstrated in photodetections. However, there is still a long way before they can be actually applied. In application, more controllable and effective way to fabricate large scale junctions is highly desired. Also the stability of these junctions still needs to be improved. Moreover, in theory, electronic transport in heterojunctions has been studied for many years by conventional modes, which cannot be applied well in few layer cases. A comprehensive understanding of electronic transport in heterojunctions based on 2D materials is urgently needed. Nevertheless, these junctions will greatly enrich studies in photodetectors based on the junctions of TMDCs.
[1] | |
[2] | |
[3] | |
[4] | |
[5] | |
[6] | |
[7] | |
[8] | |
[9] | |
[10] | |
[11] | |
[12] | |
[13] | |
[14] | |
[15] | |
[16] | |
[17] | |
[18] | |
[19] | |
[20] | |
[21] | |
[22] | |
[23] | |
[24] | |
[25] | |
[26] | |
[27] | |
[28] | |
[29] | |
[30] | |
[31] | |
[32] | |
[33] | |
[34] | |
[35] | |
[36] | |
[37] | |
[38] | |
[39] | |
[40] | |
[41] | |
[42] | |
[43] | |
[44] | |
[45] | |
[46] | |
[47] | |
[48] | |
[49] | |
[50] | |
[51] | |
[52] | |
[53] | |
[54] | |
[55] | |
[56] | |
[57] | |
[58] | |
[59] | |
[60] | |
[61] | |
[62] | |
[63] | |
[64] | |
[65] | |
[66] | |
[67] | |
[68] | |
[69] | |
[70] | |
[71] | |
[72] | |
[73] | |
[74] | |
[75] | |
[76] | |
[77] | |
[78] | |
[79] | |
[80] | |
[81] | |
[82] | |
[83] | |
[84] | |
[85] | |
[86] | |
[87] | |
[88] | |
[89] | |
[90] | |
[91] | |
[92] | |
[93] | |
[94] | |
[95] | |
[96] | |
[97] | |
[98] | |
[99] | |
[100] | |
[101] | |
[102] | |
[103] | |
[104] | |
[105] | |
[106] | |
[107] | |
[108] | |
[109] | |
[110] | |
[111] | |
[112] | |
[113] | |
[114] | |
[115] | |
[116] | |
[117] | |
[118] | |
[119] | |
[120] | |
[121] | |
[122] | |
[123] | |
[124] | |
[125] | |
[126] |