A versatile scanning photocurrent mapping system to characterize optoelectronic devices based on 2D materials

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cost-effective, versatile scanning photocurrent microscope for characterizing 2D material-based optoelectronic devices, demonstrated through mapping photocurrent in a MoS2 heterostructure.

Contribution

The paper presents a newly developed, inexpensive, and easily replicable scanning photocurrent system for detailed optoelectronic device analysis based on 2D materials.

Findings

Photocurrent mainly generated at the overlap region of the heterostructure.

The system can measure current-voltage characteristics under dark and illuminated conditions.

Demonstrated the setup with a MoS2 PN junction.

Abstract

The investigation of optoelectronic devices based on two-dimensional materials and their heterostructures is a very active area of investigation with both fundamental and applied aspects involved. We present a description of a home-built scanning photocurrent microscope that we have designed and developed to perform electronic transport and optical measurements of two-dimensional materials based devices. The complete system is rather inexpensive (<10000 EUR) and it can be easily replicated in any laboratory. To illustrate the setup we measure current-voltage characteristics, in dark and under global illumination, of an ultra-thin PN junction formed by the stacking of an n-doped few-layer MoS2 flake onto a p-type MoS2 flake. We then acquire scanning photocurrent maps and by mapping the short circuit current generated in the device under local illumination we find that at zero bias the photocurrent is generated mostly in the region of overlap between the n-type and p-type flakes.