Mobility engineering and a metal–insulator transition in monolayer MoS2

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are a new class of materials with interesting physical properties and applications ranging from nanoelectronics to sensing and photonics. In addition to graphene, the most studied 2D material, monolayers of other layered materials such as semiconducting dichalcogenides MoS₂ or WSe₂ are gaining in importance as promising channel materials for field-effect transistors (FETs). The presence of a direct bandgap in monolayer MoS₂ due to quantum-mechanical confinement allows room-temperature FETs with an on/off ratio exceeding 10(8). The presence of high- κ dielectrics in these devices enhanced their mobility, but the mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we report on electrical transport measurements on MoS₂ FETs in different dielectric configurations. The dependence of mobility on temperature shows clear evidence of the strong suppression of charged-impurity scattering in dual-gate devices with a top-gate dielectric. At the same time, phonon scattering shows a weaker than expected temperature dependence. High levels of doping achieved in dual-gate devices also allow the observation of a metal-insulator transition in monolayer MoS₂ due to strong electron-electron interactions. Our work opens up the way to further improvements in 2D semiconductor performance and introduces MoS₂ as an interesting system for studying correlation effects in mesoscopic systems.