Remote free-carrier screening to boost the mobility of Fröhlich-limited 2D semiconductors

Abstract

Van der Waals heterostructures provide a versatile tool to not only protect or control, but also enhance the properties of a 2D material. We use ab initio calculations and semi-analytical models to find strategies which boost the mobility of a current-carrying 2D semiconductor within an heterostructure. Free-carrier screening from a metallic "screener" layer remotely suppresses electron-phonon interactions in the current-carrying layer. This concept is most effective in 2D semiconductors whose scattering is dominated by screenable electron-phonon interactions, and in particular the Fröhlich coupling to polar-optical phonons. Such materials are common and characterised by overall low mobilities in the small doping limit, and much higher ones when the 2D material is doped enough for electron-phonon interactions to be screened by its own free carriers. We use GaSe as a prototype and place it in a heterostructure with doped graphene as the "screener" layer and BN as a separator. We develop an approach to determine the electrostatic response of any heterostructure by combining the responses of the individual layers computed within density-functional perturbation theory. Remote screening from graphene can suppress the long-wavelength Fröhlich interaction, leading to a consistently high mobility around $500$ to $600$ cm$^2$/Vs for carrier densities in GaSe from $10^{11}$ to $10^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$. Notably, the low-doping mobility is enhanced by a factor 2.5. This remote free-carrier screening is more efficient than more conventional manipulation of the dielectric environment, and it is most effective when the separator (BN) is thin.