Investigation of the Energy Band at the Molybdenum Disulfide and ZrO(2) Heterojunctions

The energy band alignment at the multilayer-MoS(2)/ZrO(2) interface and the effects of CHF(3) plasma treatment on the band offset were explored using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The valence band offset (VBO) and conduction band offset (CBO) for the MoS(2) /ZrO(2) sample is about 1.87 eV and 2.49 eV, respectively. While the VBO was enlarged by about 0.75 eV for the sample with CHF(3) plasma treatment, which is attributed to the up-shift of Zr 3d core level. The calculation results demonstrated that F atoms have strong interactions with Zr atoms, and the valence band energy shift for the d-orbital of Zr atoms is about 0.76 eV, in consistent with the experimental result. This interesting finding encourages the application of ZrO(2) as gate materials in MoS(2)-based electronic devices and provides a promising way to adjust the band alignment.