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Effect of underlying boron nitride thickness on photocurrent response in molybdenum disulfide — boron nitride heterostructures

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Abstract

Here we report on the photocurrent response of two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures of sputtered MoS2 on boron nitride (BN) deposited on (001)-oriented Si substrates. The steady state photocurrent (Iph) measurements used a continuous laser of λ = 658 nm (E = 1.88 eV) over a broad range of laser intensities, P (∼1 µW < P < 10 µW), and indicate that Iph obtained from MoS2 layers with the 80 nm BN under layer was ∼4 times higher than that obtained from MoS2 layers with the 30 nm BN under layer. We also found super linear dependence of Iph on P (Iph ∝ Pγ, with γ > 1) in both the samples. The responsivities obtained over the range of laser intensity studied were in the order of mA/W (∼12 and ∼2.7 mA/W with 80 nm BN and 30 nm BN under layers, respectively). These investigations provide crucial insight into the optical activity of MoS2 on BN, which could be useful for developing a variety of optoelectronic applications with MoS2 or other 2D transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through a MURI Grant No. W911NF-11-1-0362. The X-ray reflectivity experiment shown was carried out in the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory Central Research Facilities, University of Illinois. D.M. would like to acknowledge Dr. Mauro Sardela for his help with X-ray measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois, 62901, USA

    Milinda Wasala, Jie Zhang, Sujoy Ghosh, Baleeswaraiah Muchharla, Rachel Malecek, Dipanjan Mazumdar, Hassana Samassekou, Moses Gaither-Ganim, Andrew Morrison & Saikat Talapatra

  2. Department of Physics and Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    Nestor-Perera Lopez, Victor Carozo, Zhong Lin & Mauricio Terrones

  3. Department of Chemistry and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    Mauricio Terrones

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  1. Milinda Wasala
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Correspondence to Saikat Talapatra.

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This author was an editor of this journal during the review and decision stage. For the JMR policy on review and publication of manuscripts authored by editors, please refer to http://www.mrs.org/jmr-editor-manuscripts/.

A previous error in this article has been corrected, see https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2016.129.

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Wasala, M., Zhang, J., Ghosh, S. et al. Effect of underlying boron nitride thickness on photocurrent response in molybdenum disulfide — boron nitride heterostructures. Journal of Materials Research 31, 893–899 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.364

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