A field-effect approach to directly profiling the localized states in monolayer MoS₂

A fundamental understanding of the charge transport mechanism in two-dimensional semiconductors (e.g., MoS₂) is crucial for fully exploring their potential in electronic and optoelectronic devices. By using monolayer graphene as the barrier-free contact to MoS₂, we show that the field-modulated conductivity can be used to probe the electronic structure of the localized states. A series of regularly distributed plateaus were observed in the gate-dependent transfer curves. Calculations based on the variable-range hopping theory indicate that such plateaus can be attributed to the discrete localized states near mobility edge. This method provides an effective approach to directly profiling the localized states in conduction channel with an ultrahigh resolution up to 1 meV.