Black phosphorus, a fast emerging two-dimensional material, has been configured as field effect transistors, showing a hole-transport-dominated ambipolar characteristic. Here we report an effective modulation on ambipolar characteristics of few-layer black phosphorus transistors through in situ surface functionalization with caesium carbonate (Cs 2 CO 3 ) and molybdenum trioxide (MoO 3 ), respectively. Cs 2 CO 3 is found to strongly electron dope black phosphorus. The electron mobility of black phosphorus is significantly enhanced to B27 cm 2 V À 1 s À 1 after 10 nm Cs 2 CO 3 modification, indicating a greatly improved electrontransport behaviour. In contrast, MoO 3 decoration demonstrates a giant hole-doping effect. In situ photoelectron spectroscopy characterization reveals significant surface charge transfer occurring at the dopants/black phosphorus interfaces. Moreover, the surface-doped black phosphorus devices exhibit a largely enhanced photodetection behaviour. Our findings coupled with the tunable nature of the surface transfer doping scheme ensure black phosphorus as a promising candidate for further complementary logic electronics.

van der Waals junctions of two-dimensional materials with an atomically sharp interface open up unprecedented opportunities to design and study functional heterostructures. Semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides have shown tremendous potential for future applications due to their unique electronic properties and strong light-matter interaction. However, many important optoelectronic applications, such as broadband photodetection, are severely hindered by their limited spectral range and reduced light absorption. Here, we present a p-g-n heterostructure formed by sandwiching graphene with a gapless band structure and wide absorption spectrum in an atomically thin p-n junction to overcome these major limitations. We have successfully demonstrated a MoS2-graphene-WSe2 heterostructure for broadband photodetection in the visible to short-wavelength infrared range at room temperature that exhibits competitive device performance, including a specific detectivity of up to 10(11) Jones in the near-infrared region. Our results pave the way toward the implementation of atomically thin heterostructures for broadband and sensitive optoelectronic applications.

2D transition metal dichalcogenides are emerging with tremendous potential in many optoelectronic applications due to their strong light-matter interactions. To fully explore their potential in photoconductive detectors, high responsivity is required. Here, high responsivity phototransistors based on few-layer rhenium disulfi de (ReS 2 ) are presented. Depending on the back gate voltage, source drain bias and incident optical light intensity, the maximum attainable photoresponsivity can reach as high as 88 600 A W −1 , which is a record value compared to other individual 2D materials with similar device structures and two orders of magnitude higher than that of monolayer MoS 2 . Such high photoresponsivity is attributed to the increased light absorption as well as the gain enhancement due to the existence of trap states in the fewlayer ReS 2 fl akes. It further enables the detection of weak signals, as successfully demonstrated with weak light sources including a lighter and limited fl uorescent lighting. Our studies underscore ReS 2 as a promising material for future sensitive optoelectronic applications.

We report effective and stable electron doping of monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) by cesium carbonate (Cs2CO3) surface functionalization. The electron charge carrier concentration in exfoliated monolayer MoS2 can be increased by about 9 times after Cs2CO3 functionalization. The n-type doping effect was evaluated by in situ transport measurements of MoS2 field-effect transistors (FETs) and further corroborated by in situ ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman scattering measurements. The electron doping enhances the formation of negative trions (i.e., a quasiparticle comprising two electrons and one hole) in monolayer MoS2 under light irradiation and significantly reduces the charge recombination of photoexcited electron-hole pairs. This results in large photoluminescence suppression and an obvious photocurrent enhancement in monolayer MoS2 FETs.

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