Van der Waals heterostructures give access to a wide variety of new phenomena that emerge thanks to the combination of properties brought in by the constituent layered materials. We show here that owing to an enhanced interaction cross section with electrons in a type I van der Waals heterostructure, made of single layer molybdenum disulphide and thin boron nitride films, electrons and holes created in boron nitride can be transferred to the dichalcogenide where they form electron-hole pairs yielding luminescence. This cathodoluminescence can be mapped with a spatial resolution far exceeding what can be achieved in a typical photoluminescence experiment, and is highly valuable to understand the optoelectronic properties at the nanometer scale. We find that in heterostructures prepared following the mainstream dry transfer technique, cathodoluminescence is locally extinguished, and we show that this extinction is associated with the formation of defects, that are detected in Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence. We establish that to avoid defect formation induced by low-energy electron beams and to ensure efficient transfer of electrons and holes at the interface between the layers, flat and uniform interlayer interfaces are needed, that are free of trapped species, airborne ones or contaminants associated with sample preparation. We show that heterostructure fabrication using a pick-up technique leads to superior, intimate interlayer contacts associated with significantly more homogeneous cathodoluminescence.
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