Engineered Two-Dimensional Nanomaterials for Advanced Opto-electronic Applications

Two dimensional (2D) materials have unique properties that make them exciting candidates for various optical and electronic applications. Materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have been intensively studied recently with researchers racing to show advances in 2D device performance while developing a better understanding of the material properties. Despite recent advances,there are still significant roadblocks facing the use of 2D materials for real-world applications. The ability to make reliable, low-resistance electrical contact to TMDCs such as molybdeum disulfide (MoS22) has been a challenge that many researchers have sought to overcome with novel solutions. The work laid out in this dissertation uses novel techniques for addressing these issues through the use of improved device fabrication and with a clean, and potentially scalable doping method to tune 2D material properties.A high-performance field-effect transistor (FET) was fabricated using a new device platform that combined graphene leads with dielectric encapsulation leading to the highest reported value for electron mobility in MoS2. Device fabrication techniques were also investigated and a new, commercially available lithography tool (NanoFrazor) was used to pattern contacts directly onto monolayer MoS2. Through a series of control experiments with conventional lithography, a clear improvement in contact resistance was observed with the use of the NanoFrazor. Plasma-doping, a dry and clean process, was investigated as an alternative to traditional wet-chemistry doping techniques. In addition to developing doping parameters with a chlorine plasma treatment of graphene, a series of experiments on doped graphene were conducted to study its effect on optical properties. Whereas previous studies used electrostatic gating to modify graphene’s optical properties, this work with plasma-doped graphene showed the ability to tune absorbence and plasmon wavelength without the need for an applied bias opening the door to the potential for low-power applications. This work is a just small contribution to the larger body of research in this field but hopefully represents a meaningful step towards a greater understanding of 2D materials and the realization of functional applications.