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Thickness-dependent enhanced optoelectronic performance of surface charge transfer-doped ReS2 photodetectors

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Abstract

Surface charge transfer doping has been widely utilized to tune the electronic and optical properties of semiconductor photodetectors based on low-dimensional materials. Although many studies have been conducted on the performance (response time, responsivity, etc.) of doped photodetectors and their mechanisms, they merely examined a specific thickness and did not systematically explore the dependence of doping effects on the number of layers. This work performs a series of investigations on ReS2 photodetectors with different numbers of layers and demonstrates that the p-dopant tetrafluorotetracyanoquinodimethane (F4-TCNQ) converts the deep trap states into recombination centers for few-layer ReS2 and induces a vertical p-n junction for thicker ReS2. A response time of 200 ms is observed in the decorated 2-layer ReS2 photodetector, more than two orders of magnitude faster than the response of the pristine photodetector, due to the disappearance of deep trap states. A current rectification ratio of 30 in the F4-TCNQ-decorated sandwiched ReS2 device demonstrates the formation of a vertical p-n junction in a thicker ReS2 device. The responsivity is as high as 2,000 A/W owing to the strong carrier separation of the p-n junction. Different thicknesses of ReS2 enable switching of the prominent operating mechanism between transforming deep trap states into recombination centers and forming a vertical p-n junction. The thickness-dependent doping effect of a two-dimensional material serves as a new mechanism and provides a scheme toward improving the performance of other semiconductor devices, especially optical and electronic devices based on low-dimensional materials.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61904043) and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (No. LQ19A040009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lab for Nanoelectronics and NanoDevices, Department of Electronics Science and Technology, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Peiyu Zeng, Shuojie Hu, Jiaoyan He, Peng Zheng, Hui Zheng, Liang Zheng, Zhangting Wu & Yang Zhang

  2. School of Physics, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

    Wenhui Wang, Jie Jiang & Zhenhua Ni

  3. Jiangsu Province Special Equipment Safety Supervision and Inspection Institute, Wuxi, 214170, China

    Zheng Liu

  4. School of Sciences, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Dongshuang Han & Weitao Su

  5. College of Physics and Hebei Advanced Thin Film Laboratory, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, 050024, China

    Xiaojing Yao

  6. Institute of Materials Physics, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Dexuan Huo

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  1. Peiyu Zeng
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  2. Wenhui Wang
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  14. Zhangting Wu
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Correspondence to Xiaojing Yao, Zhangting Wu or Yang Zhang.

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Zeng, P., Wang, W., Jiang, J. et al. Thickness-dependent enhanced optoelectronic performance of surface charge transfer-doped ReS2 photodetectors. Nano Res. 15, 3638–3646 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3954-2

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