Rectifying optoelectronic memory based on WSe2/graphene heterostructures.

van der Waals heterostructures composed of two-dimensional materials vertically stacked have been extensively studied to develop various multifunctional devices. Here, we report WSe2/graphene heterostructure devices with a top floating gate that can serve as multifunctional devices. They exhibit gate-controlled rectification inversion, rectified nonvolatile memory effects, and multilevel optoelectronic memory effects. Depending on the polarity of the gate voltage pulses (V Gp), electrons or holes can be trapped in the floating gate, resulting in rectified nonvolatile memory properties. Furthermore, upon repeated illumination with laser pulses, positive or negative staircase photoconductivity is observed depending on the history of V Gp, which is ascribed to the tunneling of electrons or holes between the WSe2 channel and the floating gate. These multifunctional devices can be used to emulate excitatory and inhibitory synapses that have different neurotransmitters. Various synaptic functions, such as potentiation/depression curves and spike-timing-dependent plasticity, have been also implemented using these devices. In particular, 128 optoelectronic memory states with nonlinearity less than 1 can be achieved by controlling applied laser pulses and V Gp, suggesting that the WSe2/graphene heterostructure devices with a top floating gate can be applied to optoelectronic synapse devices.

Multilevel MoS2 Optical Memory with Photoresponsive Top Floating Gates.

Optoelectronic memory devices, whose states can be controlled using electrical optical signals, are receiving much attention for their potential applications in image sensing and parallel data transmission and processes. Here, we report MoS2-based devices with top floating gates of Au, graphene, and MoS2. Unlike conventional floating gate memory devices, our devices have the photoresponsive floating gate at the top, acting as a charge trapping layer. Stable and reliable switching with an on/off ratio of ∼106 and a retention time of >104 s is achieved by illumination with 405 nm light pulses as well as application of gate voltage pulses. However, upon illumination with 532 or 635 nm light pulses, multilevel optical memory effects are observed, which are dependent on the wavelength and the optical exposure dosage. In addition, compared to the device employing a graphene floating gate, the device with an MoS2 floating gate is more sensitive to light, suggesting that the multilevel optical memory properties originate from photoexcited carriers in the top floating gate and can be modulated by adjusting the top floating gate materials. The structure of the top floating gate may open up a new way to novel optoelectronic memory devices.

Artificial Synaptic Emulators Based on MoS2 Flash Memory Devices with Double Floating Gates.

We fabricated MoS2-based flash memory devices by stacking MoS2 and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layers on an hBN/Au substrate and demonstrated that these devices can emulate various biological synaptic functions, including potentiation and depression processes, spike-rate-dependent plasticity, and spike-timing dependent plasticity. In particular, compared to a flash memory device prepared on an hBN substrate, the device fabricated on the hBN/Au exhibited considerably more symmetric and linear bidirectional gradual conductance change curves, which may be attributed to the device structure incorporating double floating gate. For the device on the hBN/Au, electron transfers may occur between the floating gate MoS2 and Au, as well as between the floating gate MoS2 and the channel MoS2, allowing for more control over electron tunneling and injection. To test our hypothesis, we also fabricated a MoS2-based flash memory device on an hBN/Pd substrate and found behavior similar to the device fabricated on hBN/Au. Our results demonstrate that flexible synaptic electronics may be implemented using MoS2-based flash memory devices with double floating gates.

Mo1-xWxSe2-Based Schottky Junction Photovoltaic Cells.

We developed Schottky junction photovoltaic cells based on multilayer Mo1-xWxSe2 with x = 0, 0.5, and 1. To generate built-in potentials, Pd and Al were used as the source and drain electrodes in a lateral structure, and Pd and graphene were used as the bottom and top electrodes in a vertical structure. These devices exhibited gate-tunable diode-like current rectification and photovoltaic responses. Mo0.5W0.5Se2 Schottky diodes with Pd and Al electrodes exhibited higher photovoltaic efficiency than MoSe2 and WSe2 devices with Pd and Al electrodes, likely because of the greater adjusted band alignment in Mo0.5W0.5Se2 devices. Furthermore, we showed that Mo0.5W0.5Se2-based vertical Schottky diodes yield a power conversion efficiency of ∼16% under 532 nm light and ∼13% under a standard air mass 1.5 spectrum, demonstrating their remarkable potential for photovoltaic applications.

Metal-insulator crossover in multilayered MoS2.

The temperature dependence of electrical transport properties was investigated for multilayered MoS2 field effect transistor devices with thicknesses of 3-22 nm. Some devices showed typical n-type semiconducting behavior, while others exhibited metal-insulator crossover (MIC) from metallic to insulating conduction at finite temperatures. The latter effect occurred near zero gate voltage or at high positive gate voltages. Analysis of Raman spectroscopy revealed the key difference that devices with MIC have a metallic 1T phase as well as a semiconducting 2H phase, whereas devices without the MIC did not have a metallic 1T phase. These results suggest that the metallic 1T phase may contribute to inducing the MIC.