Approaching the intrinsic exciton physics limit in two-dimensional semiconductor diodes

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors have attracted intense interest for their unique photophysical properties, including large exciton binding energies and strong gate tunability, which arise from their reduced dimensionality^1-5. Despite considerable efforts, a disconnect persists between the fundamental photophysics in pristine 2D semiconductors and the practical device performances, which are often plagued by many extrinsic factors, including chemical disorder at the semiconductor-contact interface. Here, by using van der Waals contacts with minimal interfacial disorder, we suppress contact-induced Shockley-Read-Hall recombination and realize nearly intrinsic photophysics-dictated device performance in 2D semiconductor diodes. Using an electrostatic field in a split-gate geometry to independently modulate electron and hole doping in tungsten diselenide diodes, we discover an unusual peak in the short-circuit photocurrent at low charge densities. Time-resolved photoluminescence reveals a substantial decrease of the exciton lifetime from around 800 picoseconds in the charge-neutral regime to around 50 picoseconds at high doping densities owing to increased exciton-charge Auger recombination. Taken together, we show that an exciton-diffusion-limited model well explains the charge-density-dependent short-circuit photocurrent, a result further confirmed by scanning photocurrent microscopy. We thus demonstrate the fundamental role of exciton diffusion and two-body exciton-charge Auger recombination in 2D devices and highlight that the intrinsic photophysics of 2D semiconductors can be used to create more efficient optoelectronic devices.