Ultrafast van der Waals diode using graphene quantum capacitance and Fermi-level depinning

Graphene, with superior electrical tunabilities, has arisen as a multifunctional insertion layer in vertically stacked devices. Although the role of graphene inserted in metal-semiconductor junctions has been well investigated in quasi-static charge transport regime, the implication of graphene insertion at ultrahigh frequencies has rarely been considered. Here, we demonstrate the diode operation of vertical Pt/n-MoSe₂/graphene/Au assemblies at ~200-GHz cutoff frequency (f_C). The electric charge modulation by the inserted graphene becomes essentially frozen above a few GHz frequencies due to graphene quantum capacitance-induced delay, so that the Ohmic graphene/MoSe₂ junction may be transformed to a pinning-free Schottky junction. Our diodes exhibit much lower total capacitance than devices without graphene insertion, deriving an order of magnitude higher f_C, which clearly demonstrates the merit of graphene at high frequencies.