Adsorption of organic molecules passivates defect states on single-layer MoS ₂ via charge transfer.

Ultrathin cobalt phthalocyanine transistors of 4 ML have been fabricated for chemical sensing. Compared to 50 ML devices, the ultrathin transistors show faster response times, higher base line stabilities, and sensitivity enhancements of 1.5–20 for the five analytes tested. The enhanced response for the ultrathin transistors provides insight into the device physics. The absorption of analytes changes the surface doping level and trap energies. The changes in surface trap energies perturb the charge transport properties of the ultrathin devices, thereby, making these devices more sensitive.

A comparison is made between the electronic structures determined in ultrahigh vacuum of three surfaces using scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) and Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM). STS and KPFM illustrates Fermi level pinning of clean InAs(001)-(4×2) and InGaAs(001)-(4×2) surfaces and near flat band conditions for InAs(110) cleaved surfaces. However, for InAs(001)-(4×2) and InGaAs(001)-(4×2), STS and KPFM data show very different positions for the surface Fermi level on identical samples; it is hypothesized that the difference is due to the Fermi level measured by KPFM being shifted by a static charge dipole to which STS is much less sensitive.