Low-temperature photocarrier dynamics in monolayer MoS2

The band structure of MoS2 strongly depends on the number of layers, and a transition from indirect to direct-gap semiconductor has been observed recently for a single layer of MoS2. Single-layer MoS2 therefore becomes an efficient emitter of photoluminescence even at room temperature. Here, we report on scanning Raman and on temperature-dependent, as well as time-resolved photoluminescence measurements on single-layer MoS2 flakes prepared by exfoliation. We observe the emergence of two distinct photoluminescence peaks at low temperatures. The photocarrier recombination at low temperatures occurs on the few-picosecond timescale, but with increasing temperatures, a biexponential photoluminescence decay with a longer-lived component is observed. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3636402]