Hybrid, Gate-Tunable, van der Waals p–n Heterojunctions from Pentacene and MoS 2

• Published in: Nano letters 2015-12, Vol.16 (1)
• Main Authors: Jariwala, Deep, Howell, Sarah L., Chen, Kan-Sheng, Kang, Junmo, Sangwan, Vinod K., Filippone, Stephen A., Turrisi, Riccardo, Marks, Tobin J., Lauhon, Lincoln J., Hersam, Mark C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: bio-inspired; catalysis (heterogeneous); catalysis (homogeneous); charge transport; defects; electrodes - solar; hydrogen and fuel cells; materials and chemistry by design; MATERIALS SCIENCE; membrane; optics; photosynthesis (natural and artificial); solar (fuels); solar (photovoltaic); spin dynamics; synthesis (novel materials); synthesis (self-assembly)
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992

Here, the recent emergence of a wide variety of two-dimensional (2D) materials has created new opportunities for device concepts and applications. In particular, the availability of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides, in addition to semimetallic graphene and insulating boron nitride, has enabled the fabrication of “all 2D” van der Waals heterostructure devices. Furthermore, the concept of van der Waals heterostructures has the potential to be significantly broadened beyond layered solids. For example, molecular and polymeric organic solids, whose surface atoms possess saturated bonds, are also known to interact via van der Waals forces and thus offer an alternative for scalable integration with 2D materials. Here, we demonstrate the integration of an organic small molecule p-type semiconductor, pentacene, with a 2D n-type semiconductor, MoS2. The resulting p–n heterojunction is gate-tunable and shows asymmetric control over the antiambipolar transfer characteristic. In addition, the pentacene/MoS2 heterojunction exhibits a photovoltaic effect attributable to type II band alignment, which suggests that MoS2 can function as an acceptor in hybrid solar cells.