Resonant energy transfer in a van der Waals stacked MoS ₂ – functionalized graphene quantum dot composite with ab initio validation

Graphene-based van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures can facilitate exciting charge transfer dynamics in between structural layers with the emission of excitonic quasi-particles. However, the chemical formation of such heterostructures has been elusive thus far. In this work, a simple chemical approach is described to form such van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures using few layer MoS2 sheet embedded quantum dots (QDs) and amine-functionalized graphene quantum dots (GQDs) to probe the energy transfer mechanism for tunable photoluminescence (PL). Our findings reveal an interesting non-radiative Förster-type energy transfer with the quenching of functional GQD PL intensity after GQD/MoS2 composite formation, which validates the existing charge transfer dynamics analogous to 0D and 2D systems. The non-radiative type of energy transfer characteristic from GQD into the MoS2 layer through vdW interactions has been confirmed by photoluminescence, time decay analyses and ab initio calculations with the shifting of the Fermi level in the density of states towards the conduction band in the stacked configuration. These results are encouraging for the fundamental exploration of optical properties in other chemically prepared QD/2D based heterostructures to understand the charge transfer mechanism and fingerprint luminescence quenching for future optoelectronic device and optical sensing applications.