Environmental effects on the electrical characteristics of back-gated WSe2 field effect transistors

Abstract

We study the effect of polymer coating, pressure and temperature on the electrical characteristics of monolayer WSe2 back-gated transistors with quasi-ohmic Ni/Au contacts. We find that the removal of a layer of poly(methyl methacrylate) or decreasing the pressure change the device conductivity from p to n-type. We study the current-voltage characteristics as a function of the temperature and measure a gate-tunable Schottky barrier at the contacts with a height of 60 meV in flat-band condition. We report and discuss a change in the mobility and the subthreshold slope observed with increasing temperature. Finally, we estimate the trap density at the WSe2/SiO2 interface and study the spectral photoresponse of the device, achieving a responsivity of 0.5 AW^-1 at 700 nm wavelength and 0.37 mWcm^-2 optical power.