Improved Contact Resistance by a Single Atomic Layer Tunneling Effect in WS2/MoTe2 Heterostructures

Abstract

Abstract Manipulation of Ohmic contacts in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides for enhancing the transport properties and enabling its application as a practical device has been a long‐sought goal. In this study, n‐type tungsten disulfide (WS2) single atomic layer to improve the Ohmic contacts of the p‐type molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) material is covered. The Ohmic properties, based on the lowering of Schottky barrier height (SBH) owing to the tunneling barrier effect of the WS2 monolayer, are found to be unexpectedly excellent at room temperature and even at 100 K. The improved SBH and contact resistances are 3 meV and 1 MΩ µm, respectively. The reduction in SBH and contact resistance is confirmed with temperature‐dependent transport measurements. This study further demonstrates the selective carrier transport across the MoTe2 and WS2 layers by modulating the applied gate voltage. This WS2/MoTe2 heterostructure exhibits excellent gate control over the currents of both channels (n‐type and p‐type). The on/off ratios for both the electron and hole channels are calculated as 107 and 106, respectively, indicating good carrier type modulation by the electric field of the gate electrode. The Ohmic contact resistance using the tunneling of the atomic layer can be applied to heterojunction combinations of various materials.

Keywords

• contact resistance
• monolayer
• tunneling
• vdW heterostructures
• WS2/MoTe2