Suppression of substrate-induced charge doping in hBN-encapsulated monolayer WS2

Abstract

Strong coupling between a two-dimensional material and substrate is problematic in that interlayer charge transfer at the interface often complicates optoelectronic device applications. Such substrate-induced charge doping effects are particularly large for two-dimensional materials on SiO2/Si substrate. Here, we report a Raman study of monolayer WS2 encapsulated with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) to unveil substrate-related charge doping phenomena under the influence of laser irradiation. Raman correlation analysis between the E′ and A1′ phonon frequencies of WS2 reveals that the encapsulation of WS2 with hBN leads to a screening of electron transfer from SiO2 to WS2. Further, photo-induced charge doping in WS2 is completely suppressed by hBN encapsulation. Our results demonstrate that understanding the photo-induced charge doping effects in two-dimensional heterostructures is useful in characterizing the role of hBN encapsulation and, thus, shed light on design strategies for efficient two-dimensional optoelectronic applications where a precise control of charge doping is required.