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

Journal Article · Fri Dec 18 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Nano Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04141· OSTI ID:1233972

Jariwala, Deep ^[1]; Howell, Sarah L. ^[1]; Chen, Kan-Sheng ^[1]; Kang, Junmo ^[1]; Sangwan, Vinod K. ^[1]; Filippone, Stephen A. ^[1]; Turrisi, Riccardo ^[1]; Marks, Tobin J. ^[1]; Lauhon, Lincoln J. ^[1]; Hersam, Mark C. ^[1]

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1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering and ‡Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States

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.

• Research Organization: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center (ANSER)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0001059
• OSTI ID: 1233972
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1387512
• Journal Information: Nano Letters, Journal Name: Nano Letters Vol. 16 Journal Issue: 1; ISSN 1530-6984
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
catalysis (homogeneous)
catalysis (heterogeneous)
solar (photovoltaic)
solar (fuels)
photosynthesis (natural and artificial)
bio-inspired
hydrogen and fuel cells
electrodes - solar
defects
charge transport
spin dynamics
membrane
materials and chemistry by design
optics
synthesis (novel materials)
synthesis (self-assembly)