MoTe₂-Based Schottky Barrier Photodiode Enabled by Contact Engineering

Two-dimensional (2D) atomic crystalline materials have attracted the scientific community owing to their remarkable electrical and optical applications, such as solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and photodiodes. This study demonstrates a Schottky barrier photodiode (SPD) using different metal architectures in lateral and vertical contacts on n-type 2H phase semiconducting molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe₂) synthesized by the self-flux crystal growth method. High-work-function palladium and low-work-function indium metals have been deposited on MoTe₂ to fabricate a field-effect transistor confirming diode characteristics. The device shows an ideality factor of 1.09 and a rectification ratio of 10², indicating ideal diode characteristics based on a single MoTe₂ channel. In addition, we measured the device in the dark and used the green laser to analyze the photodiode behavior of SPD in a wide range of light intensity. A single channel using contact architecture-based study is helpful to apply in other 2D materials to achieve the simplest fundamental diodes for future nanoelectrical and optoelectronic devices.