Lithography-free electrical transport measurements on 2D materials by direct microprobing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lithography-free microprobing technique using carbon fiber microprobes for electrical measurements on 2D materials, enabling damage-free, direct contact testing with results comparable to traditional fabrication methods.

Contribution

The study presents a novel microprobing approach for 2D materials that avoids lithography, allowing direct, damage-free electrical and opto-electronic measurements with broad applicability.

Findings

Microprobing achieves comparable performance to lithographically fabricated devices.

Method successfully applied to MoS2 and other 2D materials.

Enables damage-free electrical testing of delicate 2D structures.

Abstract

We present a method to carry out electrical and opto-electronic measurements on 2D materials using carbon fiber microprobes to directly make electrical contacts to the 2D materials without damaging them. The working principle of this microprobing method is illustrated by measuring transport in MoS2 flakes in vertical (transport in the out-of-plane direction) and lateral (transport within the crystal plane) configurations, finding performances comparable to those reported for MoS2 devices fabricated by conventional lithographic process. We also show that this method can be used with other 2D materials.