Potassium hydroxide treatment of layered WSe with enhanced electronic performances

• Published in: Nanoscale Vol. 16; no. 17; pp. 8345 - 8351
• Main Authors: Yue, Dewu, Tang, Cheng, Wu, Jiajing, Luo, Xiaohui, Chen, Hongyu, Qian, Yongteng
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: 02.05.2024
• ISSN: 2040-3364; 2040-3372
• DOI: 10.1039/d3nr05432b

2D WSe 2 -based electronic devices have received much research interest. However, it is still a challenge to achieve high electronic performance in WSe 2 -based devices. In this work, we report greatly enhanced performances of different thickness WSe 2 ambipolar transistors and demonstrate homogeneous WSe 2 inverter devices, which are obtained by using a semiconductor processing-compatible layer removal technique via chemical removal of the surface top WO x layer formed by O 2 plasma treatment. Importantly, monolayer WSe 2 was realised after several consecutive removal processes, demonstrating that the single layer removal is accurate and reliable. After subsequent removal of the top layer WO x by KOH, the fabricated WSe 2 field-effect transistors exhibit greatly enhanced electronic performance along with the high electron and hole mobilities of 40 and 85 cm 2 V −1 s −1 , respectively. Our work demonstrates that the layer removal technique is an efficient route to fabricate high performance 2D material-based electronic devices. In this report, WSe 2 -based field effect transistors with enhanced electron and hole mobilities of 40 and 85 cm 2 V −1 s −1 were prepared by the layer-by-layer etching technique.