Strong Coulomb scattering effects on low frequency noise in monolayer WS₂ field-effect transistors

When atomically thin semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides are used as a channel material, they are inevitably exposed to supporting substrates. This situation can lead to masking of intrinsic properties by undesired extrinsic doping and/or additional conductance fluctuations from the largely distributed Coulomb impurities at the interface between the channel and the substrate. Here, we report low-frequency noise characteristics in monolayer WS₂ field-effect transistors on silicon/silicon-oxide substrate. To mitigate the effect of extrinsic low-frequency noise sources, a nitrogen annealing was carried out to provide better interface quality and to suppress the channel access resistance. The carrier number fluctuation and the correlated mobility fluctuation (CNF-CMF) model was better than the sole CNF one to explain our low-frequency noise data, because of the strong Coulomb scattering effect on the effective mobility caused by carrier trapping/detrapping at oxide traps. The temperature-dependent field-effect mobility in the four-probe configuration and the Coulomb scattering parameters are presented to support this strong Coulomb scattering effect on carrier transport in monolayer WS₂ field-effect transistor.