2D_PHOT · Two Dimensional Materials for Photonic Devices
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-03-16 → 2022-03-15
- EU contribution
- €159,815
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Two Dimensional Materials for Photonic Devices
European commission, recently, have proposed a set of measures for achieving technological leadership in semiconductor technologies and applications. Chips are strategic assets for key industrial value chains and semiconductors are also at the centre of strong geopolitical interests, conditioning countries capacity to act and drive digital. Manufacturing these optoelectronic devices at an industrial scale raises concerns at technological, economic, environmental and political levels. Scientific research focuses on new-generation semiconductors to generate inexpensive and highly efficient photodetectors and photonic devices. This is where this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) project, entitled “Two Dimensional Materials for Photonic Devices (2D_PHOT)” focus on. The project has had a clear perspective regarding this scenario, searching for alternatives to typical material for photovoltaics designing flexible devices based on two dimensional materials. In this context two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), such as MoS2 or MoSe2, appear promising since these materials feature long-term stability and have direct band gap as monolayers, and can be used in electronics as transistors and in optics as emitters and detectors. The work on TMDCs monolayers is an emerging research and development field since the discovery of the direct bandgap and their potential applications in electronics and valley physics TMDCs are often combined with other 2D materials like graphene and hexagonal boron nitride to make van der Waals heterostructure. These heterostructures need to be optimized to be possibly used as building blocks for a plenty of different devices such as transistors, solar cells, LEDs, photodetectors, fuel cells, photocatalytic or chemical and biosensing devices. However, for photovoltaics, limited thickness absorption constitutes a general challenge for these two-dimensional materials. The project roadmap included the design, fabrication and characterization of photonic/plasmonic nanostructured based on transition metal dichalcogenides to overcome this limitation integrating photonic design. So, the obtained results have shown that the fabricated nanostructures increase the absorption performance of these TMDCs materials, but also are useful for the designed optical devices as polarizers or transparent electrodes.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The need for inexpensive yet highly efficient photodetectors and solar cells is driving the search for a new generation of semiconductors that have high absorbance in the visible, broad wavelength operation range, are transparent and flexible albeit with strong light-matter interaction, and are easy to process. Manufacturing these optoelectronic devices at a large scale involves concerns at technological, economical, ecological, social and political levels. Ideally, the new materials are abundant, easily processed and feature long term stability and non-toxicity. The advent of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). e.g., MoS2 and WS2, has generated great expectations since these materials fulfill all these requirements. 2D-TMDCs exhibit direct band gaps, high absorption coefficients, and high carrier mobility values, making them promising candidates for optoelectronic applications. The out-of-plane quantum confinement responsible for the direct bandgap in the monolayer, also allows for the modulation of the bandgap as a function of the number of layers. However, for photovoltaics (PV), even if transparency is an important attribute in some niche markets, e.g. building-integrated PV, thickness-limited absorption poses a challenge in general. To overcome this issue, we propose a photonic nanostructuration to maximize light harvesting in these devices. We will combine strong interference effects based in the small penetration in a metallic substrate and the light trapping due to the nanostructuration by lithography of TMDCs over a metallic substrate. Resonators with high-quality factors will have potential applications in light harvesting devices, such as photodetectors, but also in solar cells. We will design and fabricate such an efficient photodetector, and also a solar cell incorporating the photonic design, and demonstrate enhanced performance in a metal back reflector/TMDC/graphene device.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- INTERNATIONAL IBERIAN NANOTECHNOLOGY LABORATORY · BragaCoordinatorPortugal
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union