Photovoltaic effect in few-layer black phosphorus PN junctions defined by local electrostatic gating

Abstract

The photovoltaic effect is one of the fundamental light-matter interactions in light energy harvesting. In conventional photovoltaic solar cells, the photogenerated charge carriers are extracted by the built-in electric field of a PN junction, typically defined by ionic dopants in a semiconductor. In atomically thin semiconductors, the doping level can be controlled by the field-effect without need of implanting dopants in the lattice, which makes 2D semiconductors prospective materials to implement electrically tunable PN junctions. However, most 2D semiconducting materials do not show ambipolar P-type and N-type field-effect transport, necessary to realize PN junctions. Few-layer black phosphorus is a recently isolated 2D semiconductor that presents a direct bandgap, high mobility, current on/off ratio and ambipolar operation. Here, we fabricate few-layer black phosphorus (b-P) field-effect transistors with split bottom gates and crystalline hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) dielectric. We demonstrate electrostatic control of the local charge carrier type and density above each gate in the device, tuning its electrical behaviour from metallic to rectifying. Illuminating a gate-defined PN junction, we observe zero-bias photocurrents and significant open-circuit voltage, which we attribute to the separation of electron-hole pairs driven by the internal electric field at the junction region. Due to the small bandgap of the material, we observe photocurrents and photovoltages for illumination wavelengths up to 940 nm, attractive for energy harvesting applications in the near-infrared region

arXiv commentincludes main text (5 figures) and supporting information (9 figures)

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• Photocurrent generation with two-dimensional van der Waals semiconductors
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• Environmental instability of few-layer black phosphorus
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• Black phosphorus: narrow gap, wide applications
• Room-temperature high detectivity mid-infrared photodetectors based on black arsenic phosphorus
• Degradation of Black Phosphorus (BP): The Role of Oxygen and Water
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• Tuning of the electronic and optical properties of single layer black phosphorus by strain
• Black phosphorus a new saturable absorber material for ultrashort pulse generation
• Atomically thin p-n junctions based on two-dimensional materials
• Defect in Phosphorene
• In Situ Thermal Decomposition of Exfoliated Two-Dimensional Black Phosphorus
• Noncovalent Functionalization of Black Phosphorus
• Post Graphene 2D Chemistry: The Emerging Field of Molybdenum Disulfide and Black Phosphorus Functionalization
• Direct Band Gaps in Group IV-VI Monolayer Materials: Binary Counterparts of Phosphorene
• Observation of Low-frequency Interlayer Breathing Modes in Few-layer Black Phosphorus
• Remarkable effect of stacking on the electronic and optical properties of few layer black phosphorus
• Tinselenidene: a Two-dimensional Auxetic Material with Ultralow Lattice Thermal Conductivity and Ultrahigh Hole Mobility
• Black phosphorus Q-switched and mode-locked Er:ZBLAN fiber lasers at 3.5 um
• Dynamical Evolution of Anisotropic Response in Black Phosphorus under Ultrafast Photoexcitation
• Thermoelectric power of bulk black-phosphorus
• Low-Symmetry Two-Dimensional Materials for Electronic and Photonic Applications
• Gate-Tuned Thermoelectric Power in Black Phosphorus
• Probing Single Vacancies in Black Phosphorus at the Atomic Level
• The Role of H2O and O2 Molecules and Phosphorus Vacancies in the Structure Instability of Phosphorene
• Franckeite: a naturally occurring van der Waals heterostructure
• Two-Dimensional Photogalvanic Spin-Battery
• Imaging of interlayer coupling in van der Waals heterostructures using a bright-field optical microscope
• Reconfigurable Multifunctional van der Waals Ferroelectric Devices and Logic Circuits
• The Optical Properties and Plasmonics of Anisotropic 2-Dimensional Materials
• Field Effect Optoelectronic Modulation of Quantum-Confined Carriers in Black Phosphorus
• Gate-tunable diode and photovoltaic effect in an organic-2D layered material p-n junction
• Electronic Structure and the Properties of Phosphorene Systems
• Photodetectors based on junctions of Two-Dimensional Transition metal dichalcogenides
• Introduction to the Physics of Silicene and other 2D Materials
• A Perspective on Recent Advances in Phosphorene Functionalization and its Application in Devices
• Opportunities in Electrically Tunable 2D Materials Beyond Graphene: Recent Progress and Future Outlook
• Phosphorene and Doped Monolayers Interfaced TiO${}_2$ with Type-II Band Alignments: Novel Excitonic Solar Cells
• Probing the anisotropic behaviors of black phosphorus by transmission electron microscope, angular-dependent Raman spectra and electronic transports measurements
• Electron optics in phosphorene pn junctions: Negative reflection and anti super-Klein tunneling
• Inverse Funnel Effect of Excitons in Strained Black Phosphorus
• Anisotropic buckling of few-layer black phosphorus
• Self-powered programmable van der Waals photodetectors with nonvolatile semi-floating gate
• Mechanical Properties of Phosphorene Nanotubes: A Density Functional Tight-Binding Study
• Imaging Carrier Inhomogeneities in Ambipolar Tellurene Field Effect Transistors
• Imaging atomic vacancies in commercially available black phosphorus
• Thermal conductivity of armchair black phosphorus nanotubes: a molecular dynamics study
• Quantum Transport in Ambipolar Few-layer Black Phosphorus
• Aharonov-Bohm effect in monolayer black phosphorus (phosphorene) nanorings
• Elastic Bending Modulus for Single-Layer Black Phosphorus
• Strongly-bound excitons and trions in anisotropic 2D semiconductors
• Highly Accurate, Reliable and Non-Contaminating Two-Dimensional Material Transfer System
• Probing the Electronic States in Black Phosphorus Vertical Heterostructures
• Gate induced monolayer behavior in twisted bilayer black phosphorus
• Charge carrier transport and lifetimes in n-type and p-type phosphorene as 2D device active materials: an ab initio study
• Magnetoplasmons in monolayer black phosphorus structures
• Electrically Tunable Energy Bandgap in Dual-Gated Ultra-Thin Black Phosphorus Field Effect Transistors
• Mechanical behavior of composite double wall nanotubes from carbon and phosphorous
• Surface buckling of phosphorene materials: determination, origin and influence on electronic structure
• Engineering quantum interference in van der Waals heterostructures
• Gate-tunable strong-weak localization transition in few-layer black phosphorus
• Lattice Opening Upon Bulk Reductive Covalent Functionalization of Black Phosphorus
• Native Point Defects in Mono-- and Bi--layer Phosphorene
• Unveiling intrinsic bulk photovoltaic effect in atomically thin ReS2
• Valence force model and nanomechanics of single-layer phosphorene
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• Phosphorene: Fabrication, Properties and Applications
• The Josephson effect in Fibonacci superconductors
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