Relaxation and transfer of photoexcited electrons at a coplanar few-layer 1 T′/2H-MoTe 2 heterojunction

Fundamental dynamic processes at the electronic contact interface, such as carrier injection and transport, become pivotal and significantly affect device performance. Time-resolved photoemission electron microscopy (TR-PEEM) with high spatiotemporal resolution provides unprecedented abilities of imaging the electron dynamics at the interface. Here, we implement TR-PEEM to investigate the electron dynamics at a coplanar metallic 1 T′-MoTe2/semiconducting 2H-MoTe2 heterojunction. We find the non-equilibrium electrons in the 1 T′-MoTe2 possess higher energy than those in the 2H-MoTe2. The non-equilibrium photoelectrons collapse and relax to the lower energy levels in the order of picoseconds. The photoexcited electrons transfer from 1 T′-MoTe2 to 2H-MoTe2 with at a rate of ~0.8 × 1012 s−1 (as fast as 1.25 ps). These findings contribute to our understanding of the behavior of photoexcited electrons in heterojunctions and the design of in-plane optoelectronic devices. Heterostructures can reveal interesting and unexplored physics at the material interface. Here, the authors use time-resolved photoemission electron microscopy to investigate the photoexcited electron dynamics at a heterostructure interface composed of two polytypes of MoTe2.