The Effect of Dielectric Capping on Few-Layer Phosphorene Transistors: Tuning the Schottky Barrier Heights

Phosphorene is a unique single elemental semiconductor with two-dimensional layered structures. In this letter, we study the transistor behavior on mechanically exfoliated few-layer phosphorene with the top-gate. We achieve a high ON-current of 144 mA/mm and hole mobility of 95.6 cm
²
/V·s. We deposit Al
₂
O
₃
by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and study the effects of dielectric capping. We observe that the polarity of the transistors alternated from p-type to ambipolar with Al
₂
O
₃
grown on the top. We attribute this transition to the changes for the effective Schottky barrier heights for both electrons and holes at the metal contact edges, which is originated from fixed charges in the ALD dielectric.