  Vertical and lateral heterostructures of van der Waals materials provide
tremendous flexibility for band structure engineering. Since electronic bands
are sensitively affected by defects, strain, and interlayer coupling, the edge
and heterojunction of these two-dimensional (2D) systems may exhibit novel
physical properties, which can be fully revealed only by spatially resolved
probes. Here, we report the spatial mapping of photoconductivity in a
monolayer-bilayer WSe2 lateral heterostructure under multiple excitation
lasers. As the photon energy increases, the light-induced conductivity detected
by microwave impedance microscopy first appears along the hetero-interface and
bilayer edge, then along the monolayer edge, inside the bilayer area, and
finally in the interior of the monolayer region. The sequential emergence of
mobile carriers in different sections of the sample is consistent with the
theoretical calculation of local energy gaps. Quantitative analysis of the
microscopy and transport data also reveals the linear dependence of
photoconductivity on the laser intensity and the influence of interlayer
coupling on carrier recombination. Combining theoretical modeling, atomic scale
imaging, mesoscale impedance microscopy, and device-level characterization, our
work suggests an exciting perspective to control the intrinsic band-gap
variation in 2D heterostructures down to the few-nanometer regime.
