Highly Sensitive, Encapsulated MoS₂ Photodetector with Gate Controllable Gain and Speed

Semiconducting, two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) is considered a promising new material for highly sensitive photodetection, because of its atomically thin profile and favorable bandgap. However, reported photodetectors to date show strong variation in performance due to the detrimental and uncontrollable effects of environmental adsorbates on devices due to large surface to volume ratio. Here, we report on highly stable and high-performance monolayer and bilayer MoS₂ photodetectors encapsulated with atomic layer deposited hafnium oxide. The protected devices show enhanced electronic properties by isolating them from the ambience as strong n-type doping, vanishing hysteresis, and reduced device resistance. By controlling the gate voltage the responsivity and temporal response can be tuned by several orders of magnitude with <i>R</i> ∼ 10–10⁴ A/W and <i>t</i> ∼ 10 ms to 10 s. At strong negative gate voltage, the detector is operated at higher speed and simultaneously exhibits a low-bound, record sensitivity of <i>D</i>* ≥ 7.7 × 10¹¹ Jones. Our results lead the way for future application of ultrathin, flexible, and high-performance MoS₂ detectors and prompt for further investigation in encapsulated transition metal dichalcogenide optoelectronics