Competence Center for Micro- and Nanotechnologies

Lateral heterostructures of dissimilar monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides provide great opportunities to build 1D in-plane p–n junctions for sub-nanometer thin low-power electronic, optoelectronic, optical, and sensing devices. Electronic and optoelectronic applications of such p–n junction devices fabricated using a scalable one-pot chemical vapor deposition process yielding MoSe2-WSe2 lateral heterostructures are reported here. The growth of the monolayer lateral heterostructures is achieved by in situ controlling the partial pressures of the oxide precursors by a two-step heating protocol. The grown lateral heterostructures are characterized structurally and optically using optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy/microscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy/microscopy. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy further confirms the high-quality 1D boundary between MoSe2 and WSe2 in the lateral heterostructure. p–n junction devices are fabricated from these lateral heterostructures and their applicability as rectifiers, solar cells, self-powered photovoltaic photodetectors, ambipolar transistors, and electroluminescent light emitters are demonstrated.