Optical and structural characterization of thin MoS2 layers on SiO2/Si substrates, towards the development of MoS2/Si heterojunction photovoltaics.

In this paper, we present the first steps of a process toward the development of MoS2/Si heterojunctions photovoltaics, using 2D 2H-MoS2, whose natural abundance and tunable bandgap make it suitable for such application. A focus is made here on the optimization of the MoS2 material and its deposition process, through preliminary optical and structural characterizations of thin 2H-MoS2 layers deposited on 80nm SiO2 on top of Si (001) substrates. Our investigations revealed oxidation of the MoS2 layers, and limited longitudinal crystallite size, which may strongly affect the band lineup between MoS2 and Si, and thus, the performance of the solar cell.