Observation of nanoscopic charge-transfer region at metal/MoS2 interface

2D materials are promising for next-generation device applications, such as flexible transistors. However, the devices using 2D materials as active layers cannot exhibit good performance. One of the causes is that electronic properties are influential to the interface with, for instance, metal contact due to an ultra-thinness of the 2D materials. We have, therefore, performed core-level photoelectron microscopy measurements to investigate the local electronic states at interfaces in a MoS2 field-effect transistor (FET). We detect a charge-transfer region (CTR) at the MoS2/metal-electrode interface, which expands over similar to 500 nm with the electrostatic potential (energy shift) variation of similar to 70 meV, which causes band bending in the MoS2 electronic structure with a Fermi level shift. The observed potential variation of the CTR is well reproduced by a simple calculation using Poisson's approximation. Our results point to a potential way of understanding the interfacial effect of the MOS2/metal electrode on the device characteristics and performance.