Simultaneous Characterization of In-Plane and Cross-Plane Resistivities in Highly Anisotropic 2D Layered Heterostructures

Understanding and characterizing the intrinsic properties of charge carrier transport across the interfaces in van der Waals heterostructures is critical to their applications in modern electronics, thermoelectrics, and optoelectronics. However, there are very few published cross-plane resistivity measurements of thin samples because these inherently 2-probe measurements must be corrected for contact and lead resistances. Here, we present a method to extract contact resistances and metal lead resistances by fitting the width dependence of the contact end voltages of top and bottom electrodes of different contact widths to a model based on current crowding. These contributions are then subtracted from the total 2-probe cross-plane resistance to obtain the cross-plane resistance of the material itself without needing multiple devices and/or etching steps. This approach was used to measure cross-plane resistivities of a (PbSe)₁(VSe₂)₁ heterostructure containing alternating layers of PbSe and VSe₂ with random in-plane rotational disorder. Several samples measured exhibited a 4 order of magnitude difference between cross-plane and in-plane resistivities over the 6-300 K temperature range. We also reported the observation of charge density wave transition in the cross-plane transport of the (PbSe)₁(VSe₂)₁ heterostructure. The device fabrication process is fully liftoff compatible, and the method developed enables the straightforward measurement of the resistivity anisotropy of most thin film materials with nm thicknesses.