Layered Van der Waals solids, due to their highly anisotropic structure as well as their availability in mono, few and multi-layer form constitute a perfect playground, where a variety of possibility in structural variation as well as functionalities are expected. This potentially gives rise to a library of unique and fascinating 2D materials systems. These systems appear to demonstrate some spectacular variety of fundamental physics as well as indicate that some of these systems can be beneficial for several niche applications directly or indirectly resulting from their electrical and optical properties.

In this study, photoluminescence properties of as grown, Ge implanted GaSe and InSe crystals with doses 1013, 1014, and 1015 ions/cm2 and 1015 ions/cm2 Ge implanted and annealed GaSe and InSe single crystals grown by using 3-zone vertical Bridgman-Stockbarger system have been studied by photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). PL spectra of as grown and implanted GaSe samples with three different doses have been studied in the ranges within the wavelength interval 570-850 nm and in the temperature ranges between 21 and 110 K. Temperature dependencies of all observed bands revealed that the peak with highest energy has excitonic origin and most of the others originate from donor-acceptor pair recombination. For GaSe samples implanted with 1013 and 1015 ions/cm2 Ge, PL spectra exhibited four emission bands while for as grown and the sample implanted with 1014 ions/cm2 v Ge had three bands. Variations of emission peaks were studied as a function of temperature. It was observed that centers of all bands shifted towards red continuously with temperature. The intensities of the emission peaks showed similarities with those obtained from as grown, 1013 and 1014 ions/cm2 Ge implanted GaSe while the peak intensities of the sample implanted with 1015 ions/cm2 Ge decreased with the temperature continuously. Using the temperature variation of the peak intensities and peak energy values activation energies were obtained and these results revealed that the two bands with low wavelength to be excitonic origin for the implanted samples with the doses 1013 and 1015 ions/cm2 Ge. Similar results were obtained for the implanted with 1015 ions/cm2 Ge and annealed sample. The other two peaks observed for these samples were attributed to donor acceptor pair transitions. In addition, direct band gaps were found to be 2.12 eV at 32 K for as grown, 2.121 eV at 25 K for 1013 ions/cm2 Ge implanted, 2.121 eV at 21 K for 1014 ions/cm2 Ge implanted, 2.124 eV at 33 K for 1015 ions/cm2 Ge implanted GaSe samples and lastly 2.113 eV at 28 K for 1015 ions/cm2 Ge implanted and annealed GaSe. PL spectra of as grown, 1013, 1014, 1015 ions/cm2 Ge implanted, and 1015 ion/cm2 Ge implanted and annealed InSe samples were also obtained at 20 K. Two broad bands were observed in the spectrum of all InSe crystals and considered to be due to impurity levels within the materials.

In this study, InSe single crystals were grown from the melt using conventional Bridgman-Stockbarger system. The grown crystals were implanted by N-ions to investigate the doping effect. the stoichiometry and the structural features were examined by scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction method, respectively. We have observed that the ingot was stoichiometric and the structure was hexagonal. Temperature dependent conductivity and Hall effect measurements were carried out to investigate the electrical properties of as-grown, as-implanted and annealed samples within the temperature range of 80-400 K. To investigate the annealing effect on both the absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra, absorption and PL measurements were performed at room temperature. N-implantation reduced the resistivity order from 103 to 101 (&amp / #937 / -cm). We have used temperature dependent conductivity and Hall effect measurements to analyze the dominant scattering mechanisms. Hall measurements showed that all the samples had n-type conduction. Absorption measurements showed that InSe had direct band gap. It was observed that annealing had almost no effect an both room temperature absorption and PL spectra of the samples.

In this study, InSe and CdS thin films were deposited by thermal evaporation method onto glass substrates. Schottky and heterojunction devices were fabricated by deposition of InSe and CdS thin films onto SnO2 coated glass substrates with various top metal contacts such as Ag, Au, In, Al and C. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the films were investigated prior to characterization of the fabricated devices. The structural properties of the deposited InSe and CdS thin films were examined through SEM and EDXA analysis. XRD and electrical measurements have indicated that undoped InSe thin films deposited on cold substrates were amorphous with p-type conductivity lying in the range of 10-4-10-5 (&amp / #61527 / .cm)-1 at room temperature. Cd doping and post-depositional annealing effect on the samples were investigated and it was observed that annealing at 100 oC did not show any significant effect on the film properties, whereas the conductivity of the samples increased as the Cd content increases. Temperature dependent I-V and Hall effect measurements have shown that conductivity and carrier concentration increases with increasing absolute temperature while mobility is almost temperature independent in the studied temperature range of 100-430 K. The structural and electrical analysis on the as-grown CdS thin films have shown that the films were polycrystalline with n-type conductivity. Temperature dependent conductivity and Hall effect measurements have indicated that conductivity, mobility and carrier concentrations increases with increasing temperature. Transmission measurements on the as-grown InSe and CdS films revealed optical band gaps around 1.74 and 2.36 eV, respectively. Schottky diode structures in the form of TO/p-InSe/Metal were fabricated with a contact area of around 8x10-3 cm2 and characterized. The best rectifying devices obtained with Ag contacts while diodes with Au contacts have shown slight rectification. The ideality factor and barrier height of the best rectifying structure were determined to be 2.0 and 0.7 eV, respectively. Illuminated I-V measurements revealed open-circuit voltages around 300 mV with short circuit current 3.2x10-7 A. High series resistance effect was observed for the structure which was found to be around 588 &amp / #61527 / . Validity of SCLC mechanism for Schottky structures was also investigated and it was found that the mechanism was related with the bulk of InSe itself. Heterostructures were obtained in the form of TO/n-CdS/p-InSe/Metal and the devices with Au and C contacts have shown the best photovoltaic response with open circuit voltage around 400 mV and short circuit current 4.9x10-8 A. The ideality factor of the cells was found to be around 2.5. High series resistance effect was also observed for the heterojunction devices and the fill factors were determined to be around 0.4 which explains low efficiencies observed for the devices.

Au delà du graphène, de nouveaux semiconducteurs 2D tels que MoS2, GaS, GaSe et InSe deviennent pertinents pour les applications et dispositifs émergents. Dans cette thèse, nous fabriquons des échantillons de quelques feuillets atomiques de ces matériaux pour des dispositifs de photo-détecteurs et les caractérisons par microscopie optique, AFM et TEM. L'interaction de la lumière avec le substrat et le dispositif ultra-mince étant critique pour son fonctionnement, nous calculons et mesurons le contraste et l'intensité de la lumière diffusée par le dispositif. Nous caractérisons également la réponse Raman et la photoluminescence en fonction du nombre de couches pour étudier les propriétés vibrationnelles et électroniques. Plusieurs dispositifs ont été fabriqués et analysés. Nous examinons d'abord les dispositifs homogènes basés sur MoS2, GaSe ou InSe, et trouvons une excellente photosensibilité pour notre photo-détecteur MoS2. Nous examinons ensuite plusieurs hétéro-structures pour combiner les propriétés de chaque matériau et atteindre de meilleures performances. Le premier exemple est un photo-détecteur graphène/InSe dont la photosensibilité augmente de quatre ordres de grandeur par rapport à un dispositif basés sur InSe seul. Nous montrons également que la couche supérieure de graphène prévient la dégradation de couches atomiques ultra-minces dans l'air. Des hétéro-structures plus complexes graphène/InSe/graphène et graphène/InSe/Au montrent un effet photovoltaïque. Enfin, nous combinons InSe avec MoS2 et obtenons un dispositifs avec photo-réponse rapide, un comportement de type photo-diode, une distribution de photo-courant uniforme et un fort effet photovoltaïque. / Novel two dimensional (2D) semiconductors beyond graphene such as MoS2, GaS, GaSe and InSe are increasingly relevant for emergent applications and devices. In this thesis, we fabricate these 2D samples for photo-detector applications and characterize them with optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Since the interaction of light with the substrate and the ultra-thin photodetector device is critical for its functioning we calculate and measure optical contrast and intensity of light scattered from the device. We also characterize the Raman and PL response as a function of number of layers to study both vibrational properties and the band gap transition. For the device application, we first examine homogenous devices based on few-layer MoS2, GaSe and InSe respectively and find an excellent photoresponsivity in our few-layer MoS2 photo-detector. We then examine several geometries for heterostructure devices, which have the advantage of combining favorable properties of each material to reach better performances. The first example is a graphene/InSe photo-detector where the photoresponsivity increases by four orders of magnitude with respect to a few-layer InSe device while the top graphene layer is also shown to prevent degradation of ultra-thin atomic layers in air. Still more complex graphene/InSe/graphene and graphene/InSe/Au heterostructures show a photovoltaic effect. Finally for the first time, we combine InSe with MoS2 and obtain a high performance device with fast photo-response, photodiode like behavior, uniform photocurrent distribution and high photovoltaic effect.