Molybdenum Disulfide-Based Photodetection Technologies

As a layered transition metal dichalcogenide with a direct bandgap in monolayer form, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) offers strong light–matter interaction, broad spectral absorption and favourable carrier mobility. Its atomically thin structure enables high responsivity and fast response times in photodetector applications while facilitating integration onto flexible, transparent and silicon platforms. Advances in chemical vapour deposition, sputtering and mechanical exfoliation have yielded uniform films and heterostructures with materials such as silicon, graphene and metal oxides, exploiting built-in electric fields and plasmonic effects to enhance photocarrier separation and signal amplification. Current research focuses on wafer-scale processes, heterojunction engineering and plasmonic coupling to achieve devices with high detectivity, low dark current and operation across visible to near-infrared wavelengths, targeting imaging, wearable electronics and optical communications.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated high-speed silicon–MoS2 p–n heterojunction photodetectors with wafer-scale fabrication, yielding responsivities up to 8.75 A W−1 and response times in the microsecond regime, indicating compatibility with CMOS processes and broadband detection from visible to near-infrared. One-step chemical vapour deposition has produced MoS2/MoO2 microflower–microfiber heterostructures with absorption reaching 98 % over 200–1500 nm and detectivities of 1.45 × 10^7 Jones at low bias. Integration of plasmonic tapes bearing silver nanoparticles onto multilayer MoS2 films has enhanced near-infrared photoresponse by a factor of four, demonstrating a facile route to plasmonic-assisted signal amplification on flexible substrates.

Molybdenum Disulfide-Based Photodetection Technologies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in molybdenum disulfide-based photodetection technologies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Responsivity: Photocurrent generated per unit incident optical power, expressed in A W−1, indicating device sensitivity.

Detectivity (D*): Figure of merit for photodetectors normalized to area and bandwidth, expressed in Jones (cm Hz½ W−1), quantifying signal-to-noise performance.

Heterojunction: Interface between two semiconductor materials with differing band structures, creating built-in electric fields that facilitate carrier separation.

Photoconductive gain: Ratio of the number of charge carriers collected to the number of photons absorbed, reflecting internal amplification.

Two-dimensional material: Crystalline solid consisting of single or few atomic layers, exhibiting unique electronic and optical properties absent in bulk.

Monolayer: A single atomic layer of a material; in MoS2 it is characterised by a direct bandgap transition, enhancing light-matter interaction.

References

1. Wafer‐Scale Growth and Transfer of High‐Quality MoS2 Array by Interface Design for High‐Stability Flexible Photosensitive Device. Advanced Science (2024).
2. High Responsivity, Large-Area Graphene/MoS2 Flexible Photodetectors. ACS Nano (2016).
3. High-Speed Scalable Silicon-MoS2 P-N Heterojunction Photodetectors. Scientific Reports (2017).
4. Large-area MoS2-MoOx heterojunction thin-film photodetectors with wide spectral range and enhanced photoresponse. APL Materials (2019).
5. Plasmonic-tape-attached multilayered MoS2 film for near-infrared photodetection. Scientific Reports (2020).
6. Broadband photodetection using one-step CVD-fabricated MoS2/MoO2 microflower/microfiber heterostructures. Scientific Reports (2022).