The electronic properties tuned by the phase transition between the semiconducting and metallic phase of monolayer MoS₂/WS₂

Abstract

Using first-principles methods, we systematically investigate the electronic properties and atomic mechanism of the monolayer MoS₂/WS₂ homo-junction structure, which contains different phase structures, either the semiconducting hexagonal (H) structure or metallic trigonal (T) structure. Through tuning the size of the lateral homo-junction structure of either MoS₂ or WS₂, it can produce different boundaries which induce different phase transferred styles. More interestingly, the electronic structures of homo-junction structures can also be tuned by changing the size of the armchair and zigzag shapes of nanoribbons. The homo-junction structure of either MoS₂ or WS₂ exhibits alterable band structure and band edge position with the changing of the size. The strong dependence of the band offset on the sizes of the homo-junction monolayer also implicates a possible way of patterning quantum structures with size engineering.

Keywords:

• phase transition
• monolayer MOS₂/WS₂
• electronic properties
• size effects

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 21403109]. We also acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [grant number BK20140769].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [21403109], and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20140769].