The electrical and valley properties of monolayer MoSe2

We studied the electrical, optical and valley properties of monolayer MoSe2. The measured PL circular polarization of monolayer MoSe2 was negligibly small, compared with the more-than 60% circular polarization of monolayer MoS2. Doping-dependent PL measurement and Kelvin probe microscopy show that the small circular polarization because of its longer exciton lifetime in monolayer MoSe2. Furthermore, it is found that the longer exciton lifetime is due to the nearly intrinsic electrical property of monolayer MoSe2, where non-radiative trion decay, which is the dominant exciton decay mechanism in n-type monolayer MoS2, is minimized due to the low density of excess electrons (holes). We believe that S and Se vacancies play an important role in determining the Fermi level position for these materials. Our experimental results show that monolayer MoSe2 can be a better valleytronics material than monolayer MoS2 in spite of its small circular polarization. •The valley properties of 2D TMDs revealed.•A strong correlation between the electrical, optical and valley properties in 2D TMDs.