Electron Excess Doping and Effective Schottky Barrier Reduction on the MoS2/h-BN Hetero-structure

Layered hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) thin film is a dielectric that surpasses carrier mobility by reducing charge scattering with silicon oxide in diverse electronics formed with graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides. However, the h-BN effect on electron doping concentration and Schottky barrier is little known. Here, we report that use of h-BN thin film as a substrate for monolayer MoS2 can induce similar to 6.5 x 10(11) cm(-2) electron doping at room temperature which was determined using theoretical flat band model and interface trap density. The saturated excess electron concentration of MoS2 on h-BN was found to be similar to 5 x 10(13) cm(-2) at high temperature and was significantly reduced at low temperature. Further, the inserted h-BN enables us to reduce the Coulombic charge scattering in MoS2/h-BN and lower the effective Schottky barrier height by a factor of 3, which gives rise to four times enhanced the field-effect carrier mobility and an emergence of metal-insulator transition at a much lower charge density of similar to 1.0 x 10(12) cm(-2) (T = 25 K). The reduced effective Schottky barrier height in MoS2/h-BN is attributed to the decreased effective work function of MoS2 arisen from h-BN induced n-doping and the reduced effective metal work function due to dipole moments originated from fixed charges in SiO2.