Lithium-ion conducting glass ceramics for electrostatic gating

Abstract

We explore solid electrolytes for electrostatic gating using field-effect transistors (FETs) in which thin WSe2 crystals are exfoliated and transferred onto a lithium-ion conducting glass ceramic substrate. For negative gate voltages (VG < 0), the devices work equally well as ionic liquid gated FETs while offering specific advantages, whereas no transistor action is seen for VG > 0. For VG < 0, the devices can nevertheless be driven into the ambipolar injection regime by applying a large source-drain bias and strong electroluminescence is observed when direct band-gap WSe2 monolayers are used. Detecting and imaging the emitted light is much simpler in these FETs as compared to ionic liquid gated transistors, because the semiconductor surface is exposed (i.e., not covered by another material). Our results show that solid electrolytes are complementary to the existing liquid gates, as they enable experiments that are not possible when the semiconductor is buried under the liquid itself.