Decoding the DC and optical conductivities of disordered MoS$_{2}$ films: an inverse problem

TL;DR

This paper extends an inversion method to decode the composition of disordered monolayer MoS₂ from its conductivity responses, demonstrating high accuracy in complex electronic structures using quantum transport simulations.

Contribution

The study generalizes an existing inversion technique to complex 2D materials like MoS₂, enabling accurate composition analysis from conductivity data.

Findings

Accurately inverts defect composition from DC conductivity in MoS₂

Achieves high-precision defect detection using optical conductivity

Validates the method's applicability to complex electronic structures

Abstract

To calculate the conductivity of a material having full knowledge of its composition is a reasonably simple task. To do the same in reverse, i.e., to find information about the composition of a device from its conductivity response alone, is very challenging and even more so in the presence of disorder. An inversion methodology capable of decoding the information contained in the conductivity response of disordered structures has been recently proposed but despite claims of generality and robustness, the method has only been used with 2D systems possessing relatively simple electronic structures. Here we put these claims to the test and generalise the inversion method to the case of monolayer MoS$_2$, a material whose electronic structure is far more complex and elaborate. Starting from the spectral function that describes the DC conductivity of a disordered sample of a single layered MoS$_2$ containing a small concentration of randomly dispersed vacancies, we are able to invert the signal and find the exact composition of defects with an impressive degree of accuracy. Remarkably, equally accurate results are obtained with the optical conductivity. This is indicative of a methodology that is indeed suitable to extract composition information from different 2D materials, regardless of their electronic structure complexity. Calculated conductivity results were used as a proxy for their experimental counterpart and were obtained with an efficient quantum transport code (KITE) based on a real-space multi-orbital tight-binding model with parameters generated by density functional theory.