We investigate electrical transport and optoelectronic properties of field effect transistors (FETs) made from few-layer black phosphorus (BP) crystals down to a few nanometers. In particular, we explore the anisotropic nature and photocurrent generation mechanisms in BP FETs through spatial-, polarization-, gate-, and bias-dependent photocurrent measurements. Our results reveal that the photocurrent signals at BP-electrode junctions are mainly attributed to the photovoltaic effect in the off-state and photothermoelectric effect in the on-state, and their anisotropic feature primarily results from the directional-dependent absorption of BP crystals.

We investigate the photocurrent generation mechanisms at a vertical p-n heterojunction between black phosphorus (BP) and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) flakes through polarization-, wavelength-, and gate-dependent scanning photocurrent measurements. When incident photon energy is above the direct band gap of MoS2, the photocurrent response demonstrates a competitive effect between MoS2 and BP in the junction region. In contrast, if the incident photon energy is below the band gap of MoS2 but above the band gap of BP, the photocurrent response at the p-n junction exhibits the same polarization dependence as that at the BP-metal junction, which is nearly parallel to the MoS2 channel. This result indicates that the photocurrent signals at the MoS2-BP junction primarily result from the direct band gap transition in BP. These fundamental studies shed light on the knowledge of photocurrent generation mechanisms in vertical 2D semiconductor heterojunctions, offering a new way of engineering future two-dimensional materials based optoelectronic devices.

We report high-performance WSe phototransistors with two-dimensional (2D) contacts formed between degenerately p-doped WSe and undoped WSe channel. A photoresponsivity of ∼600 mA/W with a high external quantum efficiency up to 100% and a fast response time (both rise and decay times) shorter than 8 μs have been achieved concurrently. More importantly, our WSe phototransistor exhibits a high specific detectivity (∼10 Jones) in vacuum, comparable or higher than commercial Si- and InGaAs-based photodetectors. Further studies have shown that the high photoresponsivity and short response time of our WSe phototransistor are mainly attributed to the lack of Schottky-barriers between degenerately p-doped WSe source/drain contacts and undoped WSe channel, which can reduce the RC time constant and carrier transit time of a photodetector. Our experimental results provide an accessible strategy to achieve high-performance WSe phototransistor architectures by improving their electrical transport and photocurrent generation simultaneously, opening up new avenues for engineering future 2D optoelectronic devices.