Mechanistic insight into the chemical treatments of monolayer transition metal disulfides for photoluminescence enhancement

Zhaojun Li, Hope Bretscher, Yunwei Zhang, Géraud Delport, James Xiao, Alpha Lee, Samuel D. Stranks and Akshay Rao ()
Additional contact information
Zhaojun Li: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
Hope Bretscher: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
Yunwei Zhang: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
Géraud Delport: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
James Xiao: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
Alpha Lee: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
Samuel D. Stranks: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue
Akshay Rao: University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract There is a growing interest in obtaining high quality monolayer transition metal disulfides for optoelectronic applications. Surface treatments using a range of chemicals have proven effective to improve the photoluminescence yield of these materials. However, the underlying mechanism for the photoluminescence enhancement is not clear, which prevents a rational design of passivation strategies. Here, a simple and effective approach to significantly enhance the photoluminescence is demonstrated by using a family of cation donors, which we show to be much more effective than commonly used p-dopants. We develop a detailed mechanistic picture for the action of these cation donors and demonstrate that one of them, bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide lithium salt (Li-TFSI), enhances the photoluminescence of both MoS2 and WS2 to a level double that of the currently best performing super-acid trifluoromethanesulfonimide (H-TFSI) treatment. In addition, the ionic salts used in our treatments are compatible with greener solvents and are easier to handle than super-acids, providing the possibility of performing treatments during device fabrication. This work sets up rational selection rules for ionic chemicals to passivate transition metal disulfides and increases their potential in practical optoelectronic applications.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26340-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-26340-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26340-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().