The transport behaviors of MoS2 field-effect transistors (FETs) with various channel thicknesses are studied. In a 12 nm thick MoS2 FET, a typical switching behavior is observed with an I on/I off ratio of 106. However, in 70 nm thick MoS2 FETs, the gating effect weakens with a large off-current, resulting from the screening of the gate field by the carriers formed through the ionization of S vacancies at 300 K. Hence, when the latter is dual-gated, two independent conductions develop with different threshold voltage (V TH) and field-effect mobility (μFE) values. When the temperature is lowered for the latter, both the ionization of S vacancies and the gate-field screening reduce, which revives the strong I on/I off ratio and merges the two separate channels into one. Thus, only one each of V TH and μFE are seen from the thick MoS2 FET when the temperature is less than 80 K. The change of the number of conduction channels is attributed to the ionization of S vacancies, which leads to a temperature-dependent intra- and interlayer conductance and the attenuation of the electrostatic gate field. The defect-related transport behavior of thick MoS2 enables us to propose a new device structure that can be further developed to a vertical inverter inside a single MoS2 flake.

Compared to the silicon device whose performance is severely degraded due to the pin-holes and channel inactive space when the channel thickness is less than 1 nm, despite monolayer transitionmetal dichalcogenides being the most stable structure to be used as a two-dimensional semiconductor material, precise analysis of the double-gate (DG) field-effect transistor (FET) device structure has hardly been performed thus far. Hence, we analyzed the device operation characteristics of single-gate and DG sweeps in a monolayer MoS 2 DG FET structure, where the interfacial carrier behavior is distinguished from both gates by the different gate dielectric materials at the top and bottom. The synchronized DG sweep operation with biasing of V TG and V BG (=10 V TG ) increased the carrier mobility by a factor of 4.85 compared with the independent DG sweep. Direct-current analysis and low-frequency noise modeling indicate that the device performance improves under equivalent gate voltages from both sides, because the device operates in a low vertical electric field and the interfacial carrier fluctuation effect is significantly reduced.

Both photothermal and photovoltaic infrared (IR) detectors employ sensing materials that have an optical band gap. Different from these conventional materials, graphene has a conical band structure that imposes zero band gap. In this study, using the semimetallic multilayer graphene, IR detection at room temperature is realized. The relatively high Seebeck coefficient, ranging from 40 to 60 μV/K, compared to that of the metal, and the large optical absorption in the mid-IR region, in the wavelength range of 7–17 μm, enable graphene to detect IR without an absorber, which is essential for most IR detectors because the band gap of the sensing materials is much larger than the energy of IR and the incident IR can be absorbed directly by the sensing material. Thus, the incident IR can be absorbed directly by the sensing material in our device. The developed detector with a SiN membrane shows high responsivity and detectivity, which are 140 V/W and 5 × 108 cm·Hz1/2/W at 5 Hz, respectively. In addition, the IR sensor shows a response time of 600 μs. In the room-temperature operation of the IR sensor array without cooling, our sensors detect IR emitted from a human body and track the movement. The availability of large-area graphene in current technology opens new applications for metallic two-dimensional materials and a possibility for scale-up.

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The two different light–matter interactions between visible and infrared light are not switchable because control mechanisms have not been elucidated so far, which restricts the effective spectral range in light-sensing devices. In this study, modulation of the effective spectral range is demonstrated using the metal–insulator transition of MoS2. Nondegenerate MoS2 exhibits a photoconductive effect in detecting visible light. In contrast, degenerate MoS2 responds only to mid-infrared (not visible) light by displaying a photoinduced heating effect via free carrier absorption. Depending on the doping level, the optical behavior of MoS2 simulates the photoconductivity of either the semiconductor or the metal, further indicating that the optical metal–insulator transition is coherent with its electrical counterpart. The electrical switchability of MoS2 enables the development of an unprecedented and novel design optical sensor that can detect both visible and mid-IR (wavelength of 9.6 μm) ranges with a singular optoelectronic device.