Antimony-Platinum Modulated Contact Enabling Majority Carrier Polarity Selection on a Monolayer Tungsten Diselenide Channel

Nano Lett. 2024 Jul 24;24(29):8880-8886. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c01436. Epub 2024 Jul 9.

Abstract

We develop a novel metal contact approach using an antimony (Sb)-platinum (Pt) bilayer to mitigate Fermi-level pinning in 2D transition metal dichalcogenide channels. This strategy allows for control over the transport polarity in monolayer WSe2 devices. By adjustment of the Sb interfacial layer thickness from 10 to 30 nm, the effective work function of the contact/WSe2 interface can be tuned from 4.42 eV (p-type) to 4.19 eV (n-type), enabling selectable n-/p-FET operation in enhancement mode. The shift in effective work function is linked to Sb-Se bond formation and an emerging n-doping effect. This work demonstrates high-performance n- and p-FETs with a single WSe2 channel through Sb-Pt contact modulation. After oxide encapsulation, the maximum current density at |VD| = 1 V reaches 170 μA/μm for p-FET and 165 μA/μm for n-FET. This approach shows promise for cost-effective CMOS transistor applications using a single channel material and metal contact scheme.

Keywords: contact modulation; field-effect transistor; interface analysis; photoemission spectroscopy; polarity transition; tungsten diselenide; two-dimensional materials.