Hole-dominated Fowler–Nordheim tunneling in 2D heterojunctions for infrared imaging

• DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.07.037
• Publication Date: 2020-08-01T01:49:13Z
• Authors: Lei Tong; Meng Peng; Peisong Wu; Xinyu Huang; Zheng Li; Zhuiri Peng; Runfeng Lin; Qiaodong Sun; Yaxi Shen; Xuefeng Zhu; Peng Wang; Jianbin Xu; Lei Ye
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 0104 chemical sciences

Heterostructures based on diverse two-dimensional (2D) materials are effective for tailoring and further promoting device performance and exhibit considerable potential in photodetection. However, the problem of high-density thermionic carriers can be hardly overcome in most reported heterostructure devices based on type I and type II band alignment, which leads to an unacceptably small Iphoto/Idark and strong temperature dependence that limit the performance of photodetectors. Here, using the MoTe2/h-BN/MoTe2/h-BN heterostructure, we report the hole-dominated Fowler-Nordheim quantum tunneling transport in both on and off states. The state-of-the-art device operating at room temperature shows high detectivity of >108 Jones at a laser power density of <0.3 nW μm-2 from the visible to near infrared range. In addition, the fast on-off switching and highly sensitive photodetection properties promise superior imaging capabilities. The tunneling mechanism, in combination with other unique properties of 2D materials, is significant for novel photodetection.