
In this talk I will introduce and motivate the study of the mechanical,
electrical and optical properties of atomically thin crystals different than
graphene. I will focus on Molybdenum Disulphide which is considered a case of
special interest. Single-layer MoS2 is an attractive two-dimensional material
that combines the mechanical flexibility of graphene with a large direct
bandgap. While graphene is very interesting as a transparent electrode, its
lack of a bandgap limits its usefulness in semiconducting and optoelectronic
devices. Atomically thin MoS2, on the other hand, has a large intrinsic
bandgap. This attractive feature has been employed to fabricate many devices
not possible in graphene, such as field-effect transistors with high mobility
and current on/off ratio, logic gates and efficient photo-transistors. Our
work on MoS2 has been focused on developing new methods to fabricate single
layer MoS2 [1] and to characterize the intrinsic mechanical [2], optical and
electrical properties [3-4] of this atomically thin ** ** material.Here, I
will show an overview of our last results paying special attention to our
studies on the photocurrent generation in single layer MoS2 [4] and the strain
engineering in atomically thin MoS2 [5].
References
[1] Castellanos-Gomez, A., et al., Laser-Thinning of MoS2: On Demand
Generation of a Single-Layer Semiconductor. Nano Letters, 2012, 12(6): p.
3187-3192.
[2] Castellanos-Gomez, A., et al., Elastic Properties of Freely Suspended MoS2
Nanosheets. Advanced Materials, 2012, 24(6): p. 772-775.
[3] Castellanos-Gomez, A., et al., Electric-Field Screening in Atomically Thin
Layers of MoS2: the Role of Interlayer Coupling. Advanced Materials, 2013,
25(6): p. 899-903.
[4] Buscema, M., et al., Large and Tunable Photothermoelectric Effect in
Single-Layer MoS2. Nano Letters, 2013, 13(2), p. 358–363
[5] Castellanos-Gomez, A., et al., Local strain engineering in atomically thin
MoS2. arXiv:1306.3804 (2013)