The electronic properties tuned by the phase transition between the semiconducting and metallic phase of monolayer MoS2/WS2

Using first-principles methods, we systematically investigate the electronic properties and atomic mechanism of the monolayer MoS₂/WS₂ homo-junction structure, which contains different phase structures, either the semiconducting hexagonal (H) structure or metallic trigonal (T) structure. Through tuning the size of the lateral homo-junction structure of either MoS₂ or WS₂, it can produce different boundaries which induce different phase transferred styles. More interestingly, the electronic structures of homo-junction structures can also be tuned by changing the size of the armchair and zigzag shapes of nanoribbons. The homo-junction structure of either MoS₂ or WS₂ exhibits alterable band structure and band edge position with the changing of the size. The strong dependence of the band offset on the sizes of the homo-junction monolayer also implicates a possible way of patterning quantum structures with size engineering.