Search

1T-TaS$_2$ exhibits several resistivity phases due to the modulation of charge density wave (CDW). The fact that such phase transition can be driven electrically has attracted a lot of attention in the recent past towards \emph{active-metal} based electronics. However, the bias-driven resistivity switching is not very large ($<$ 5 fold), and an enhancement in the same will highly impact such phase transition devices. One aspect that is often overlooked is that such phase transition is also accompanied by a significant change in the local temperature due to the low thermal conductivity of 1T-TaS$_2$. In this work, we exploit such electrically driven phase transition induced temperature change to promote carriers over a thermionic barrier in a 1T-TaS$_{2}$/2H-TaSe$_{2}$/2H-MoS$_{2}$ T-Junction, achieving a $964$-fold abrupt switching in the current through the MoS$_2$ channel. The device is highly reconfigurable and exhibits an abrupt reduction in current as well when the biasing configuration changes. The results are promising for several electronic applications, including neuromorphic chips, switching, nonlinear devices, and industrial electronics such as current and temperature sensing.

Metal-based electronics is attractive for fast and radiation-hard electronic circuits and remains one of the longstanding goals for researchers. The emergence of 1T-TaS$_2$, a layered material exhibiting strong charge density wave (CDW) driven resistivity switching that can be controlled by an external stimulus such as electric field and optical pulses, has triggered a renewed interest in metal-electronics. Here we demonstrate a negative differential resistor (NDR) using electrically driven CDW phase transition in an asymmetrically designed T-junction made up of 1T-TaS$_2$/2H-MoS$_2$ van der Waals heterostructure. The principle of operation of the proposed device is governed by majority carrier transport and is distinct from usual NDR devices employing tunneling of carriers, thus avoids the bottleneck of weak tunneling efficiency in van der Waals heterojunctions. Consequently, we achieve a peak current density in excess of $10^5$ nA$\mu$m$^{-2}$, which is about two orders of magnitude higher than that obtained in typical layered material based NDR implementations. The peak current density can be effectively tuned by an external gate voltage as well as photo-gating. The device is robust against ambiance-induced degradation and the characteristics repeat in multiple measurements over a period of more than a month. The findings are attractive for the implementation of active metal-based functional circuits.

Conventional metals, in general, do not exhibit strong photoluminescence. 2H-TaSe$_2$ is a layered transition metal dichalcogenide that possesses metallic property with charge density wave characteristics. Here we show that 2H-TaSe$_2$ exhibits a surprisingly strong optical absorption and photoluminescence resulting from inter-band transitions. We use this perfect combination of electrical and optical properties in several optoelectronic applications. We show a seven-fold enhancement in the photoluminescence intensity of otherwise weakly luminescent multi-layer MoS$_2$ through non-radiative resonant energy transfer from TaSe$_2$ transition dipoles. Using a combination of scanning photocurrent and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements, we also show that the hot electrons generated by light absorption in TaSe$_2$ have a rather long lifetime unlike conventional metals, making TaSe$_2$ an excellent hot electron injector. Finally, we show a vertical TaSe$_2$/MoS$_2$/graphene photodetector demonstrating a responsivity of $>10$ AW$^{-1}$ at $0.1$ MHz - one of the fastest reported photodetectors using MoS$_2$.

The strong light-matter interaction in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is promising for nanoscale optoelectronics with their direct band gap nature and the ultra-fast radiative decay of the strongly bound excitons these materials host. However, the impeded amount of light absorption imposed by the ultra-thin nature of the monolayers impairs their viability in photonic applications. Using a layered heterostructure of a monolayer TMD stacked on top of strongly absorbing, non-luminescent, multi-layer SnSe2, we show that both single-photon and two-photon luminescence from the TMD monolayer can be enhanced by a factor of 14 and 7.5, respectively. This is enabled through inter-layer dipole-dipole coupling induced non-radiative Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from SnSe2 underneath which acts as a scavenger of the light unabsorbed by the monolayer TMD. The design strategy exploits the near-resonance between the direct energy gap of SnSe2 and the excitonic gap of monolayer TMD, the smallest possible separation between donor and acceptor facilitated by van der Waals heterojunction, and the in-plane orientation of dipoles in these layered materials. The FRET driven uniform single- and twophoton luminescence enhancement over the entire junction area is advantageous over the local enhancement in quantum dot or plasmonic structure integrated 2D layers, and is promising for improving quantum efficiency in imaging, optoelectronic, and photonic applications.

1T-TaS2 is a layered material that exhibits charge density wave (CDW) induced distinct electrical resistivity phases and has attracted a lot of attention for interesting device applications. However, such resistivity switching effects are often weak, and cannot be modulated by an external gate voltage - limiting their widespread usage. Using a back-gated 1T-TaS2/2H-MoS2 heterojunction, here we show that the usual resistivity switching in TaS2 due to different phase transitions is accompanied with a surprisingly strong modulation in the Schottky barrier height (SBH) at the TaS2/MoS2 interface - providing an additional knob to control the degree of the phase-transition-driven resistivity switching by an external gate voltage. In particular, the commensurate (C) to triclinic (T) phase transition results in an increase in the SBH owing to a collapse of the Mott gap in TaS2. The change in SBH allows us to estimate an electrical Mott gap opening of ~71 +/- 7 meV in the C phase of TaS2. On the other hand, the nearly-commensurate (NC) to incommensurate (IC) phase transition results in a suppression in the SBH, and the heterojunction shows a gate-controlled resistivity switching up to 17.3, which is ~14.5 times higher than that of standalone TaS2. The findings mark an important step forward showing a promising pathway to externally control as well as amplify the CDW induced resistivity switching. This will boost device applications that exploit these phase transitions, such as ultra-broadband photodetection, negative differential conductance, fast oscillator and threshold switching in neuromorphic circuits., Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Applied