New theoretical insights into the photoinduced carrier transfer dynamics in WS2/WSe2 van der Waals heterostructures

Shedding light on the dynamics of charge transfer is fundamental and important to understand the light-photocurrent power conversion in transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) heterostructures. Herein, based on time-dependent ab initio nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulation, we studied the photoinduced carrier transfer dynamics in the WS2/WSe2 heterostructure and further analyzed the effects of stacking configuration and temperature. Our calculations show that the time scales of ultrafast hole transfer in the C7 and T stacking configurations are 35 fs and 30 fs, respectively, which are mainly caused by the adiabatic charge transfer mechanism. Meanwhile, the time scales of ultrafast electron transfer in the C7 and T stacking configurations are 12 fs and 40 fs, respectively, which are in good agreement with the experimental result. We also investigated in detail the photoinduced carrier transfer pathways of C7 and T stacking configurations, which appear to have some significant differences. In addition, we found that the temperature basically has no effect on the electron transfer dynamics of the WS2/WSe2 heterostructure; this is in excellent agreement with the experimental observation. In short, the reported findings can provide more in-depth insights into the photoinduced carrier transfer dynamics of TMD-based van der Waals heterostructures.

Automated summary

This study investigated the photoinduced carrier transfer dynamics in the WS2/WSe2 heterostructure, revealing that stacking configurations can affect the time scales of ultrafast hole and electron transfer. Different stacking configurations have significant differences in carrier transfer pathways, while temperature has minimal impact on electron transfer dynamics.