Approaching the Intrinsic Limit in Transition Metal Diselenides via Point Defect Control

Two dimensional (2D) transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) based semiconductors have generated intense recent interest due to their novel optical and electronic properties and potential for applications. In this work, we characterize the atomic and electronic nature of intrinsic point defects found in single crystals of these materials synthesized by two different methods, chemical vapor transport and self-flux growth. Using a combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), we show that the two major intrinsic defects in these materials are metal vacancies and chalcogen antisites. We show that by control of the synthetic conditions, we can reduce the defect concentration from above 10¹³/cm² to below 10¹¹/cm². Because these point defects act as centers for nonradiative recombination of excitons, this improvement in material quality leads to a hundred-fold increase in the radiative recombination efficiency.