Unipolar p-type monolayer WSe2 field-effect transistors with high current density and low contact resistance enabled by van der Waals contacts

High-performance field-effect transistors (FETs) based on atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors have demonstrated great promise in post-Moore integrated circuits. However, unipolar p-type 2D semiconductor transistors yet remain challenging and suffer from low saturation current density (less than 10 mu A center dot mu m(-1)) and high contact resistance (larger than 100 k Omega center dot mu m), mainly limited by the Schottky barrier induced by the mismatch of the work-functions and the Fermi level pinning at the metal contact interfaces. Here, we overcome these two obstacles through van der Waals (vdW) integration of high work-function metal palladium (Pd) as the contacts onto monolayer WSe2 grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. We demonstrate unipolar p-type monolayer WSe2 FETs with superior device performance: room temperature on-state current density exceeding 100 mu A center dot mu m(-1), contact resistance of 12 k Omega center dot mu m, on/off ratio over 10(7), and field-effect hole mobility of similar to 103 cm(2)center dot V-1 center dot s(-1). Electrical transport measurements reveal that the Fermi level pinning effect is completely effectively eliminated in monolayer WSe2 with vdW Pd contacts, leading to a Schottky barrier-free Ohmic contact at the metal-semiconductor junctions. Combining the advantages of large-scale vdW contact strategy and CVD growth, our results pave the way for wafer-scale fabrication of complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) logic circuits based on atomically thin 2D semiconductors.