Remote modulation doping in van der Waals heterostructure transistors

Doping is required to modulate the electrical properties of semiconductors but introduces impurities that lead to Coulomb scattering, which hampers charge transport. Such scattering is a particular issue in two-dimensional semiconductors because charged impurities are in close proximity to the atomically thin channel. Here we report the remote modulation doping of a two-dimensional transistor that consists of a band-modulated tungsten diselenide/hexagonal boron nitride/molybdenum disulfide heterostructure. The underlying molybdenum disulfide channel is remotely doped via controlled charge transfer from dopants on the tungsten diselenide surface. The modulation-doped device exhibits two-dimensional-confined charge transport and the suppression of impurity scattering, shown by increasing mobility with decreasing temperature. Our molybdenum disulfide modulation-doped field-effect transistors exhibit a room-temperature mobility of 60 cm2 V–1 s–1; in comparison, transistors that have been directly doped exhibit a mobility of 35 cm2 V–1 s–1.