Effect of atomic passivation at Ni-MoS2 interfaces on contact behaviors

Abstract Recently, spintronics devices using MoS2 and ferromagnetic electrode have been in the spotlight. However, strong Fermi level pinning (FLP) is known to occur between MoS2 and ferromagnetic electrode, resulting in a large Schottky barrier height (SBH), which makes it difficult to inject electron from ferromagnetic electrode to semiconductor. To resolve this problem, we study the reduction of FLP occurring between two materials by investigating the effect of atomic passivation at Ni-MoS2 interfaces on contact behaviors. Such atomic passivation can reduce the FLP and magnetic moments induced at S atoms of MoS2. Especially, the largest decrease in the FLP occurs in the case of H atom passivation. Besides, the N, O, and F atom passivation confirms the possibility of ohmic contact, indicated from small SBHs (∼0.2 eV). As a result, the SBH and thus the efficiency of the device can be controlled by atomic passivation at metal-semiconductor interfaces.