The high-bias electrical characteristics of back-gated field-effect transistors with chemical vapor deposition synthesized bilayer MoS 2 channel and Ti Schottky contacts are discussed. It is found that oxidized Ti contacts on MoS 2 form rectifying junctions with ≈0.3 to 0.5 eV Schottky barrier height. To explain the rectifying output characteristics of the transistors, a model is proposed based on two slightly asymmetric back-to-back Schottky barriers, where the highest current arises from image force barrier lowering at the electrically forced junction, while the reverse current is due to Schottkybarrier-limited injection at the grounded junction. The device achieves a photoresponsivity greater than 2.5 A W −1 under 5 mW cm −2 white-LED light. By comparing two-and four-probe measurements, it is demonstrated that the hysteresis and persistent photoconductivity exhibited by the transistor are peculiarities of the MoS 2 channel rather than effects of the Ti/MoS 2 interface.

Few-layer palladium diselenide (PdSe 2 ) field effect transistors are studied under external stimuli such as electrical and optical fields, electron irradiation, and gas pressure. The ambipolar conduction and hysteresis are observed in the transfer curves of the as-exfoliated and unprotected PdSe 2 material. The ambipolar conduction and its hysteretic behavior in the air and pure nitrogen environments are tuned. The prevailing p-type transport observed at atmospheric pressure is reversibly turned into a dominant n-type conduction by reducing the pressure, which can simultaneously suppress the hysteresis. The pressure control can be exploited to symmetrize and stabilize the transfer characteristics of the device as required in highperformance logic circuits. The transistors are affected by trap states with characteristic times in the order of minutes. The channel conductance, dramatically reduced by the electron irradiation during scanning electron microscope imaging, is restored after an annealing of several minutes at room temperature. The work paves the way toward the exploitation of PdSe 2 in electronic devices by providing an experiment-based and deep understanding of charge transport in PdSe 2 transistors subjected to electrical stress and other external agents.

We report the first observation of gate-controlled field emission current from a tungsten diselenide (WSe2) monolayer, synthesized by chemical-vapour deposition on SiO2/Si substrate. Ni contacted WSe2 monolayer back-gated transistors, under high vacuum, exhibit n-type conduction and drain-bias dependent transfer characteristics, which are attributed to oxygen/water desorption and drain induced Schottky barrier lowering, respectively. The gate-tuned n-type conduction enables field emission, i.e. the extraction of electrons by quantum tunnelling, even from the flat part of the WSe2 monolayers. Electron emission occurs under an electric field ~100 V μm −1 and exhibit good time stability. Remarkably, the field emission current can be modulated by the back-gate voltage. The first field-emission vertical transistor based on WSe2 monolayer is thus demonstrated and can pave the way to further optimize new WSe2 based devices for use in vacuum electronics.

Field emission electron sources in vacuum electronics are largely considered to achieve faster response, higher efficiency and lower energy consumption in comparison with conventional thermionic emitters. Carbon nanotubes had a leading role in renewing attention to field emission technologies in the early 1990s, due to their exceptional electron emitting properties enabled by their large aspect ratio, high electrical conductivity, and thermal and chemical stability. In the last decade, the search for improved emitters has been extended to several carbon nanostructures, comprising carbon nanotubes, either individual or films, diamond structures, graphitic materials, graphene, etc. Here, we review the main results in the development of carbon-based field emitters.

We study the effect of electric stress, gas pressure and gas type on the hysteresis in the transfer characteristics of monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) field effect transistors. The presence of defects and point vacancies in the MoS 2 crystal structure facilitates the adsorption of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen or methane, which strongly affect the transistor electrical characteristics. Although the gas adsorption does not modify the conduction type, we demonstrate a correlation between hysteresis width and adsorption energy onto the MoS 2 surface. We show that hysteresis is controllable by pressure and/or gas type. Hysteresis features two well-separated current levels, especially when gases are stably adsorbed on the channel, which can be exploited in memory devices.

We study the effect of polymer coating, pressure, temperature, and light on the electrical characteristics of monolayer WSe2 back-gated transistors with Ni/Au contacts. Our investigation shows that the removal of a layer of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or a decrease of the pressure change the device conductivity from p- to n-type. From the temperature behavior of the transistor transfer characteristics, a gate-tunable Schottky barrier at the contacts is demonstrated and a barrier height of ~70 meV in the flat-band condition is measured. We also report and discuss a temperature-driven change in the mobility and the subthreshold swing that is used to estimate the trap density at the WSe2/SiO2 interface. Finally, from studying the spectral photoresponse of the WSe2, it is proven that the device can be used as a photodetector with a responsivity of ~0.5 AW−1 at 700 nm and 0.37 mW/cm2 optical power.

The metal-graphene contact resistance is one of the major limiting factors toward the technological exploitation of graphene in electronic devices and sensors. High contact resistance can be detrimental to device performance and spoil the intrinsic great properties of graphene. In this paper, we fabricate back-gate graphene field-effect transistors with different geometries to study the contact and channel resistance as well as the carrier mobility as a function of gate voltage and temperature. We apply the transfer length method and the y-function method showing that the two approaches can complement each other to evaluate the contact resistance and prevent artifacts in the estimation of carrier mobility dependence on the gate-voltage. We find that the gate voltage modulates both the contact and the channel resistance in a similar way but does not change the carrier mobility. We also show that raising the temperature lowers the carrier mobility, has a negligible effect on the contact resistance, and can induce a transition from a semiconducting to a metallic behavior of the graphene sheet resistance, depending on the applied gate voltage. Finally, we show that eliminating the detrimental effects of the contact resistance on the transistor channel current almost doubles the carrier field-effect mobility and that a competitive contact resistance as low as 700 Ω·μm can be achieved by the zig-zag shaping of the Ni contact.

We report the electrical characterization and field emission properties of MoS2 bilayers deposited on a SiO2/Si substrate. Current–voltage characteristics are measured in the back-gate transistor configuration, with Ti contacts patterned by electron beam lithography. We confirm the n-type character of as-grown MoS2 and we report normally-on field-effect transistors. Local characterization of field emission is performed inside a scanning electron microscope chamber with piezo-controlled tungsten tips working as the anode and the cathode. We demonstrate that an electric field of ~200 normalV/sans-serifμnormalm is able to extract current from the flat part of MoS2 bilayers, which can therefore be conveniently exploited for field emission applications even in low field enhancement configurations. We show that a Fowler–Nordheim model, modified to account for electron confinement in two-dimensional (2D) materials, fully describes the emission process.