Giant Piezoresistive Effect and Strong Bandgap Tunability in Ultrathin InSe upon Biaxial Strain

The ultrathin nature and dangling bonds free surface of 2D semiconductors allow for significant modifications of their bandgap through strain engineering. Here, thin InSe photodetector devices are biaxially stretched, finding, a strong bandgap tunability upon strain. The applied biaxial strain is controlled through the substrate expansion upon temperature increase and the effective strain transfer from the substrate to the thin InSe is confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. The bandgap change upon biaxial strain is determined through photoluminescence measurements, finding a gauge factor of up to ≈200 meV %⁻¹. The effect of biaxial strain on the electrical properties of the InSe devices is further characterized. In the dark state, a large increase of the current is observed upon applied strain which gives a piezoresistive gauge factor value of ≈450–1000, ≈5–12 times larger than that of other 2D materials and of state-of-the-art silicon strain gauges. Moreover, the biaxial strain tuning of the InSe bandgap also translates in a strain-induced redshift of the spectral response of the InSe photodetectors with ΔE_cut-off ≈173 meV at a rate of ≈360 meV %⁻¹ of strain, indicating a strong strain tunability of the spectral bandwidth of the photodetectors.