Potential Profile of Stabilized Field-Induced Lateral p–n Junction in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

Electric field-induced p–n junctions are often used to realize peculiar functionalities in various materials. This method can be applied not only to conventional semiconductors but also to carbon nanotubes, graphene, and organic semiconductors to which the conventional chemical doping method is difficult to apply. Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are one of such materials where the field-induced p–n junctions play crucial roles in realizing solar cell and light-emitting diode operations as well as circularly polarized electroluminescence. Although the field-induced p–n junction is a well-established technique, many of its physical properties are left to be understood because their doping mechanism is distinct from that of conventional p–n junctions. Here we report a direct electrical measurement of the potential variation along the field-induced p–n junction using multiple pairs of voltage probes. We detected the position of the junction, estimated the built-in potential, and monitored the effect of the bias voltage. We found that the built-in potential becomes negative under a forward bias voltage range where field-induced TMD p–n junctions have been operated as light-emitting diodes. This feature well reproduced the circularly polarized electroluminescence from the WSe 2 p–n junction, indicating that the present observation provides a useful background for understanding and functionalizing field-induced p–n junctions.