Temperature-Dependent Spectroscopy of Atomically Thin Semiconductors

The development of modern technologies has relied on silicon as its semiconductor of choice since the mid-twentieth century. However, fundamental limits in scalability and efficiency of silicon-based technology are quickly being met. Alternatively, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) hold great promise in their potential applications to future technologies. Traits such as atomic-scale thickness, direct band gap, high carrier mobility make TMDs worthy of exploring their properties. We seek to characterize atomically thin TMDs such as molybdenum disulfide with laser spectroscopy techniques by exposing these materials to monochromatic light in a temperature-variant environment and home-built laser scanning microscope to perform Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. With these techniques, we characterize the spectral properties and temperature dependence of various TMDs, highlighting the critical role of thermal effects in determining the performance of TMD-based electronic and quantum devices.