Promising Approach for High-Performance MoS2 Nanodevice: Doping the BN Buffer Layer to Eliminate the Schottky Barriers.

Reducing the Schottky barrier height (SBH) of metal-MoS2 interface with no deteriorating the intrinsic properties of MoS2 channel layer is crucial to realize the high-performance MoS2 nanodevice. To realize this expectation, a promising approach is present in this study by doping the boron nitride (BN) buffer layer between metal electrode and MoS2 channel layer. Results demonstrate that no matter the types of concentrations and dopants the intrinsic electronic structure, low electron effective mass of MoS2 channel layer, and the weak Fermi level pinning effects of metal/BN-MoS2 interfaces are preserved and not deteriorated. More importantly, the n- and p-type SBHs of metal/BN-MoS2 interfaces are significantly reduced by the electron-poor and -rich dopants, respectively, when the doped BN buffer layer spreads all over the nanodevice, which is in contrast to the traditional doping rule. Moreover, both the n- and p-type SBHs are further decreased and even eliminated when the concentrations of dopants increase. The n-type SBH of doped Au/BxN-MoS2 interface and the p-type SBH of doped Pt/BNx-MoS2 interface can be reduced to -0.21 and -0.61 eV by doping with high concentrations of Li and O, respectively. This theoretical work provides an effective and promising method to realize high-performance MoS2 nanodevices with negligible SBHs.