Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite materials have received substantial research attention due to their impressively high performance in photovoltaic devices. As one of the oldest functional materials, it is intriguing to explore the optoelectronic properties in perovskite after reducing it into a few atomic layers in which two-dimensional (2D) confinement may get involved. In this work, we report a combined solution process and vapor-phase conversion method to synthesize 2D hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite (i.e., CH3NH3PbI3) nanocrystals as thin as a single unit cell (∼1.3 nm). High-quality 2D perovskite crystals have triangle and hexagonal shapes, exhibiting tunable photoluminescence while the thickness or composition is changed. Due to the high quantum efficiency and excellent photoelectric properties in 2D perovskites, a high-performance photodetector was demonstrated, in which the current can be enhanced significantly by shining 405 and 532 nm lasers, showing photoresponsivities of 22 and 12 AW(-1) with a voltage bias of 1 V, respectively. The excellent optoelectronic properties make 2D perovskites building blocks to construct 2D heterostructures for wider optoelectronic applications.

Vertical heterojunctions of two two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted considerable attention recently. A variety of heterojunctions can be constructed by stacking different TMDs to form fundamental building blocks in different optoelectronic devices such as photodetectors, solar cells, and light-emitting diodes. However, these applications are significantly hampered by the challenges of large-scale production of van der Waals stacks of atomically thin materials. Here, we demonstrate scalable production of periodic patterns of few-layer WS2, MoS2, and their vertical heterojunction arrays by a thermal reduction sulfurization process. In this method, a two-step chemical vapor deposition approach was developed to effectively prevent the phase mixing of TMDs in an unpredicted manner, thus affording a well-defined interface between WS2 and MoS2 in the vertical dimension. As a result, large-scale, periodic arrays of few-layer WS2, MoS2, and their vertical heterojunctions can be produced with desired size and density. Photodetectors based on the as-produced MoS2/WS2 vertical heterojunction arrays were fabricated, and a high photoresponsivity of 2.3 A·W(-1) at an excitation wavelength of 450 nm was demonstrated. Flexible photodetector devices using MoS2/WS2 heterojunction arrays were also demonstrated with reasonable signal/noise ratio. The approach in this work is also applicable to other TMD materials and can open up the possibilities of producing a variety of vertical van der Waals heterojunctions in a large scale toward optoelectronic applications.

Recently, research on graphene based photodetectors has drawn substantial attention due to ultrafast and broadband photoresponse of graphene. However, they usually have low responsivity and low photoconductive gain induced by the gapless nature of graphene, which greatly limit their applications. The synergetic integration of graphene with other two-dimensional (2D) materials to form van der Waals heterostructure is a very promising approach to overcome these shortcomings. Here we report the growth of graphene-Bi2Te3 heterostructure where Bi2Te3 is a small bandgap material from topological insulator family with a similar hexagonal symmetry to graphene. Because of the effective photocarrier generation and transfer at the interface between graphene and Bi2Te3, the device photocurrent can be effectively enhanced without sacrificing the detecting spectral width. Our results show that the graphene-Bi2Te3 photodetector has much higher photoresponsivity (35 AW(-1) at a wavelength of 532 nm) and higher sensitivity (photoconductive gain up to 83), as compared to the pure monolayer graphene-based devices. More interestingly, the detection wavelength range of our device is further expanded to near-infrared (980 nm) and telecommunication band (1550 nm), which is not observed on the devices based on heterostructures of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides.

Two-dimensional layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) show intriguing potential for optoelectronic devices due to their exotic electronic and optical properties. Only a few efforts have been dedicated to large-area growth of TMDs. Practical applications will require improving the efficiency and reducing the cost of production, through (1) new growth methods to produce large size TMD monolayer with less-stringent conditions, and (2) nondestructive transfer techniques that enable multiple reuse of growth substrate. In this work, we report to employ atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) for the synthesis of large size (>100 μm) single crystals of atomically thin tungsten disulfide (WS2), a member of TMD family, on sapphire substrate. More importantly, we demonstrate a polystyrene (PS) mediated delamination process via capillary force in water which reduces the etching time in base solution and imposes only minor damage to the sapphire substrate. The transferred WS2 flakes are of excellent continuity and exhibit comparable electron mobility after several growth cycles on the reused sapphire substrate. Interestingly, the photoluminescence emission from WS2 grown on the recycled sapphire is much higher than that on fresh sapphire, possibly due to p-type doping of monolayer WS2 flakes by a thin layer of water intercalated at the atomic steps of the recycled sapphire substrate. The growth and transfer techniques described here are expected to be applicable to other atomically thin TMD materials.

Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2), which is a typical semiconductor from the family of layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), is an attractive material for optoelectronic and photodetection applications because of its tunable bandgap and high quantum luminescence efficiency. Although a high photoresponsivity of 880–2000 AW−1 and photogain up to 5000 have been demonstrated in MoS2-based photodetectors, the light absorption and gain mechanisms are two fundamental issues preventing these materials from further improvement. In addition, it is still debated whether monolayer or multilayer MoS2 could deliver better performance. Here, we demonstrate a photoresponsivity of approximately 104 AW−1 and a photogain of approximately 107 electrons per photon in an n-n heterostructure photodetector that consists of a multilayer MoS2 thin film covered with a thin layer of graphene quantum dots (GQDs). The enhanced light-matter interaction results from effective charge transfer and the re-absorption of photons, leading to enhanced light absorption and the creation of electron-hole pairs. It is feasible to scale up the device and obtain a fast response, thus making it one step closer to practical applications.

wileyonlinelibrary.comThird, monolayer TMDs show piezoelectricity due to the broken inversion symmetry. [5,6] As a result, monolayer TMDs indicate significant potential for flexible optoelectronics, [7,8] piezotronics, [5,6] mechanically enhanced nanocomposites, [9] and smart materials for strain sensing. [10] In these applications, strain is inevitably a critical object requiring comprehensive understanding.So far, substantial efforts have been spent on the study of strain engineering to the band structure of TMDs by using bending, [11][12][13][14][15] high-pressure compression, [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] and tensile elongation. [25] Their results indicate strain is an effective way to tune the bandgap from direct to indirect, generate the redshifts of trion and exciton peaks, and change the material conductivity from semiconducting to metallic. [26] However, an important question of how strain relaxes inside TMDs is still open.Herein, we investigate the strain relaxation of monolayer WS 2 triangular crystals deposited on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate. The uniaxial tensile strain applied to the WS 2 crystals is transferred from PDMS substrate when the substrate is elongated by a loading frame. We observe that the trion and exciton PL peaks undergo a redshift when the substrate strain is increased from 0 to 0.16. However, the redshifts stop when the substrate strain is further increased from 0.16 to 0.32. This is caused by the strain relaxation in WS 2 through Strain-dependent electrical and optical properties of atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides may be useful in sensing applications. However, the question of how strain relaxes in atomically thin materials remains not well understood. Herein, the strain relaxation of triangular WS 2 deposited on polydimethylsiloxane substrate is investigated. The photoluminescence of trions (X -) and excitons (X 0 ) undergoes linear redshifts of ≈20 meV when the substrate tensile strain increases from 0 to 0.16. However, when the substrate strain further increases from 0.16 to 0.32, the redshifts cease due to strain relaxation in WS 2 . The strain relaxation occurs through formation of wrinkles in the WS 2 crystal. The pattern of wrinkles is found to be dependent on the relative angle between an edge of the triangular WS 2 crystal and tensile strain direction. Finite element simulations of the strain distribution inside the WS 2 crystals explain the experimental observations.

Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites have emerged as new photovoltaic materials with impressively high power conversion efficiency due to their high optical absorption coefficient and long charge carrier diffusion length. In addition to high photoluminescence quantum efficiency and chemical tunability, hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites also show intriguing potential for diverse photonic applications. In this work, we demonstrate that polycrystalline organic-inorganic perovskite microwires can function as active optical waveguides with small propagation loss. The successful production of high quality perovskite microwires with different halogen elements enables the guiding of light with different colours. Furthermore, it is interesting to find that out-coupled light intensity from the microwire can be effectively modulated by an external electric field, which behaves as an electro-optical modulator. This finding suggests the promising applications of perovskite microwires as effective building blocks in micro/nano scale photonic circuits.

The widely used photodetector design based on atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has a lateral metal-TMD-metal junction with a fairly small, line shape photoresponsive active area at the TMD-electrode interface. Here, we report a highly efficient photodetector with extremely large photoresponsive active area based on a lateral junction of monolayer-bilayer WSe 2 . Impressively, the separation of the electron-hole pairs (excitons) extends onto the whole 1L-2L WSe 2 junction surface. The responsivity of the WSe 2 junction photodetector is over 3200 times higher than that of a monolayer WSe 2 device and leads to a highest external quantum efficiency of 256% due to the efficient carrier extraction. Unlike the TMD p-n junctions modulated by dual gates or localized doping, which require complex fabrication procedures, our study establishes a simple, controllable, and scalable method to improve the photodetection performance by maximizing the active area for current generation.