Defect Engineering for Modulating the Trap States in 2D Photoconductors

Defect-induced trap states are essential in determining the performance of semiconductor photodetectors. The de-trap time of carriers from a deep trap can be prolonged by several orders of magnitude as compared to shallow traps, resulting in additional decay/response time of the device. Here, it is demonstrated that the trap states in 2D ReS₂ can be efficiently modulated by defect engineering through molecule decoration. The deep traps that greatly prolong the response time can be mostly filled by protoporphyrin molecules. At the same time, carrier recombination and shallow traps in-turn play dominant roles in determining the decay time of the device, which can be several orders of magnitude faster than the as-prepared device. Moreover, the specific detectivity of the device is enhanced (as high as ≈1.89 × 10¹³ Jones) due to the significant reduction of  the dark current through charge transfer between ReS₂ and molecules. Defect engineering of trap states therefore provides a solution to achieve photodetectors with both high responsivity and fast response.