Dominating Interlayer Resonant Energy Transfer in Type-II 2D Heterostructure.

Karmakar, Arka; Al-Mahboob, Abdullah; Petoukhoff, Christopher E; Kravchyna, Oksana; Chan, Nicholas S; Taniguchi, Takashi; Watanabe, Kenji; Dani, Keshav M · ACS Nano · 2022

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Type-II heterostructures (HSs) are essential components of modern electronic and optoelectronic devices. Earlier studies have found that in type-II transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) HSs, the dominating carrier relaxation pathway is the interlayer charge transfer (CT) mechanism. Here, this report shows that, in a type-II HS formed between monolayers of MoSe<sub>2</sub> and ReS<sub>2</sub>, nonradiative energy transfer (ET) from higher to lower work function material (ReS<sub>2</sub> to MoSe<sub>2</sub>) dominates over the traditional CT process with and <i>without</i> a charge-blocking interlayer. Without a charge-blocking interlayer, the HS area shows 3.6 times MoSe<sub>2</sub> photoluminescence (PL) enhancement as compared to the MoSe<sub>2</sub> area alone. In a completely encapsulated sample, the HS PL emission further increases by a factor of 6.4. After completely blocking the CT process, more than 1 order of magnitude higher MoSe<sub>2</sub> PL emission was achieved from the HS area. This work reveals that the nature of this ET is truly a resonant effect by showing that in a similar type-II HS formed by ReS<sub>2</sub> and WSe<sub>2</sub>, CT dominates over ET, resulting in a severely quenched WSe<sub>2</sub> PL. This study not only provides significant insight into the competing interlayer processes but also shows an innovative way to increase the PL emission intensity of the desired TMD material using the ET process by carefully choosing the right material combination for HS.