Charge trapping at the MoS2-SiO2 interface and its effects on the characteristics of MoS2 metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors

The field effect transistors (FETs) based on thin layer MoS2 often have large hysteresis and unstable threshold voltage in their transfer curves, mainly due to the charge trapping at the oxide-semiconductor interface. In this paper, the charge trapping and de-trapping processes at the SiO2-MoS2 interface are studied. The trapping charge density and time constant at different temperatures are extracted. Making use of the trapped charges, the threshold voltage of the MoS2 based metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs is adjusted from 4 V to −45 V. Furthermore, the impact of the trapped charges on the carrier transport is evaluated. The trapped charges are suggested to give rise to the unscreened Coulomb scattering and/or the variable range hopping in the carrier transport of the MoS2 sheet.