Quantifying Plasmon-Enhanced Light Absorption in Monolayer WS2 Films

Transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors hold great promise in photonic and optoelectronic applications, such as flexible solar cells and ultrafast photodetectors, because of their direct band gap and few-atom thicknesses. However, it is crucial to understand and improve the absorption characteristics of these monolayer semiconducting materials. In this study, we conducted a systematic numerical and experimental investigation to demonstrate and quantify absorption enhancement in WS2 monolayer films, in the presence of silver plasmonic nanodisk arrays. Our analysis combining full-field electromagnetic simulations and optical absorption spectroscopy measurements indicates a fourfold enhancement in the absorption of an WS2 film near its band edge, close to the plasmonic resonance wavelength of Ag nanodisk arrays. The proposed Ag/WS2 heterostructure exhibited a 2.5-fold enhancement in calculated short-circuit current. Such hybrid plasmonic or two-dimensional (2D) materials with enhanced absorption pave the way for the practical realization of 2D optoelectronic devices, including ultrafast photodetectors and solar cells.