Self-powered Broadband Photodetector on Flexible Substrate from Visible to Near Infrared Wavelength

Van der Waals (vdWs) heterostructures assembled by stacking 2D crystal layers have proven to be a new material platform for high-performance optoelectronic applications such as thin film transistors, photodetectors, and emitters. Here, we demonstrate a novel device with strain tuning capabilities using MoS2/Sb2Te3 vdWs p-n heterojunction devices designed for photodetection in the visible to near-infrared spectrum. The heterojunction devices exhibit remarkable characteristics, such as a low dark current in the range of a few picoamperes and a high photoresponsivity of 0.12 A/W. Furthermore, the proposed devices exhibit exceptional tunability when subjected to a compressive strain of up to 0.3%. By introducing strain at the interface of the heterojunction, the materials bandgap is affected resulting in a significant change in the band structure of the heterojunction. This leads to a change in the detectors optical absorption characteristics improving the responsivity of the device. The proposed strain-induced engineering of the electronic and optical properties of the stacked 2D crystal materials allows tuning of the optoelectronic performance of vdWs devices for high-performance and low-power consumption applications for applications like wearable sensors and flexible electro-optic circuits.