Electric bias-induced edge degradation of few-layer MoS2 devices

Abstract In this work, we experimentally investigate the effects of electric bias on the degradation of few-layer MoS2 back-gated field-effect transistors in ambient air. The devices were fabricated using mechanically exfoliated MoS2 flakes, which were transferred to a Si/SiO2 substrate by a PDMS-based transfer. We report an accelerated electric bias-induced degradation of the devices under investigation and used optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to monitor changes of the morphology of the MoS2 channel. In particular, we found a linear dependency of the degradation on the electric field between the Ti/Au source and drain contacts. In addition, we identify four regions in which morphological changes occur, of which the edges of the MoS2 channel are most affected.