Impact of contact resistance on the electrical properties of MoS₂ transistors at practical operating temperatures

Abstract

Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) is currently regarded as a promising material for the next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, several issues need to be addressed to fully exploit its potential for field effect transistor (FET) applications. In this context, the contact resistance, R C, associated with the Schottky barrier between source/drain metals and MoS2 currently represents one of the main limiting factors for suitable device performance. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of MoS2 FETs under practical operating conditions, it is necessary to investigate the temperature dependence of the main electrical parameters, such as the field effect mobility (μ) and the threshold voltage (V th). This paper reports a detailed electrical characterization of back-gated multilayer MoS2 transistors with Ni source/drain contacts at temperatures from T = 298 to 373 K, i.e., the expected range for transistor operation in circuits/systems, considering heating effects due to inefficient power dissipation. From the analysis of the transfer characteristics (I D−V G) in the subthreshold regime, the Schottky barrier height (ΦB ≈ 0.18 eV) associated with the Ni/MoS2 contact was evaluated. The resulting contact resistance in the on-state (electron accumulation in the channel) was also determined and it was found to increase with T as R C proportional to T 3.1. The contribution of R C to the extraction of μ and V th was evaluated, showing a more than 10% underestimation of μ when the effect of R C is neglected, whereas the effect on V th is less significant. The temperature dependence of μ and V th was also investigated. A decrease of μ proportional to 1/T α with α = 1.4 ± 0.3 was found, indicating scattering by optical phonons as the main limiting mechanism for mobility above room temperature. The value of V th showed a large negative shift (about 6 V) increasing the temperature from 298 to 373 K, which was explained in terms of electron trapping at MoS2/SiO2 interface states.

Pressure‐Tunable Ambipolar Conduction and Hysteresis in Thin Palladium Diselenide Field Effect Transistors

“…However, the effect of R c can be taken into account by replacing V ds with V ds − R c I ds in Equation . Assuming that the contact resistance is independent of V gs , as corroborated by the preserved linearity of the output curves with increasing V gs , it can be easily shown that…”

Conductive Atomic Force Microscopy of Semiconducting Transition Metal Dichalcogenides and Heterostructures

“…However, contrary to this expectation, experiments showed the opposite behavior, i.e., the SBH for most semiconducting TMDs is only weakly dependent on the metal work function, and this effect has been attributed to a Fermi level pinning [58][59][60][61]. Clearly, this phenomenon has strong implications on TMDs-based transistors, as the current injection/extraction from the source/drain contacts rules the overall device behavior [62]. As an example, in the case of MoS 2 thin films (produced either by exfoliation or by CVD) most of the elementary metals exhibit a Fermi level pinning close to the MoS 2 conduction band, resulting in SBH values for electrons injection ranging from 20-60 meV for low work function metals (Sc, Ti, etc.)…”

Engineering Field Effect Transistors with 2D Semiconducting Channels: Status and Prospects

“…At temperatures >300 K the mobility decreases . This can be explained by the limiting factor of optical phonons and the creation of Sulfur vacancies in MoS 2 , which takes place in bare channel devices.…”