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Masihhur R. Laskar, Lu Ma, Santhakumar Kannappan, Pil Sung Park, Sriram Krishnamoorthy, Digbijoy N. Nath,
Wu Lu, Yiying Wu, and Siddharth Rajan
Citation: Applied Physics Letters 102, 252108 (2013); doi: 10.1063/1.4811410
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4811410
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/102/25?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AIP Publishing
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Large area single crystal (0001) oriented MoS
2
Masihhur R. Laskar,
1
Lu Ma,
2
Santhakumar Kannappan,
3
Pil Sung Park,
1
Sriram Krishnamoorthy,
1
Digbijoy N. Nath,
1
Wu Lu,
1
Yiying Wu,
2
and Siddharth Rajan
1,a)
1
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
2
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
3
Department of Nanobio Materials and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology,
Gwangju 500-712, South Korea
(Received 10 April 2013; accepted 23 May 2013; published online 28 June 2013)
Layered metal dichalcogenide materials are a family of semiconductors with a wide range of energy
band gaps and properties, the potential for exciting physics and technology applications. However,
obtaining high crystal quality thin lms over a large area remains a challenge. Here we show that
chemical vapor deposition (CVD) can be used to achieve large area single crystal Molybdenum
Disulde (MoS
2
) thin lms. Growth temperature and choice of substrate were found to critically
impact the quality of lm grown, and high temperature growth on (0001) oriented sapphire yielded
highly oriented single crystal MoS
2
lms. Films grown under optimal conditions were found to be
of high structural quality from high-resolution X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy,
and Raman measurements, approaching the quality of reference geological MoS
2
.
Photoluminescence and electrical measurements conrmed the growth of optically active MoS
2
with a low background carrier concentration, and high mobility. The CVD method reported here for
the growth of high quality MoS
2
thin lms paves the way towards growth of a variety of layered 2D
chalcogenide semiconductors and their heterostructures. VC
2013 AIP Publishing LLC.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4811410]
Molybdenum disulphide (MoS
2
) has received signi-
cant attention recently for next generation electronics,
15
optoelectronics,
6
and sensor
7,8
applications. The intrinsic 2-
dimensional nature of carriers in these chalcogenides semi-
conductors offers the advantages of superior vertical scaling
for a transistor topology
9
and the prospect of creating heter-
ostructures that are not limited by out of plane bonding and
lattice mismatch, through techniques such as van der Waals
epitaxy. The potential of these materials for low-cost exi-
ble or transparent electronics that could revolutionize tech-
nology is also very high.
Monolayer MoS
2
device (transistor) results showing
excellent on-off ratio and high current density have been
obtained using akes
1,2
mechanically exfoliated from bulk
geological samples, which are valuable for demonstrating the
promise of MoS
2
devices.
10,11
However, exfoliation does not
allow control over thickness and area of the lm, and may
not be suitable for large scale device fabrication. While previ-
ous approaches involving chemical vapor deposition
(CVD),
12,13
sulfurization of molybdenum oxides,
14,15
hydro-
thermal synthesis,
16
and electrochemical synthesis
17
led to
large area thin MoS
2
the crystal quality of the layers grown
was signicantly lower than that obtained from naturally
occurring MoS
2
, which remains the highest quality material
available to date. The low structural quality and polycrystal-
line nature, evident from Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffrac-
tion, and transmission electron microscopy in these reports
led to low mobility which was orders of magnitude lower
than the mobility in relatively high-quality exfoliated sam-
ples. Methods to achieve large area metal dichalcogenide
lms that use the conversion of bulk MoS
2
into large scale
MoS
2
lm using laser trimming
18
and liquid exfoliation
19
exploit the high quality of geological MoS
2
but have not
demonstrated area-specic and large area thin lm synthesis.
In this paper, we show that chemical vapor deposition
on crystalline substrates can lead to large area oriented crys-
talline lms with unprecedented high quality. The lms
reported here have structural quality similar to the best qual-
ity geological samples available to date, and could enable a
variety of large area electronic and optoelectronic device
applications. The methods proposed can also be extended to
other layered chalcogenide materials, as well as lateral and
vertical heterostructures based on them.
Samples were grown by sulfurization of e-beam evapo-
rated Mo lms (see Fig. S1 in supplementary information
20
for more details). Our experiments indicate that growth tem-
perature and substrate were critical in determining lm qual-
ity. We describe here characteristics of samples grown at
temperatures 500
C, 700
C, 900
C, and 1100
C, referred to
as sample A, B, C, and D, respectively. From optical micros-
copy, each of these lms was found to have specular reec-
tion indicating smooth MoS
2
coverage and absence of any
remaining metal on the surface. Atomic force micrographs of
the lms (Fig. 1) show the evolution of surface morphology
as a function of growth temperature. At relatively low temper-
atures sample A showed smooth surface morphology (rms
roughness 0.30 nm) with small grains that we attribute to
the polycrystalline nature of the lm. For sample B, the grain
size was found to be larger, while the surface roughness
(3.5 nm) was higher than sample A. In sample C, thin sheet of
MoS
2
was found to cover the entire surface, and the morphol-
ogy revealed hexagonal symmetry. We believe this originates
from the hexagonal basal plane symmetry of the MoS
2
crystal
itself, suggesting that the layers grown are oriented along
(0001) or c-axis of the MoS
2
unit cell. In sample D, MoS
2
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:
rajan@ece.osu.edu. Tel.: 1(614) 247 7922. Fax: 1 (614) 292 7596.
0003-6951/2013/102(25)/252108/5/$30.00 VC
2013 AIP Publishing LLC 102, 252108-1
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 102, 252108 (2013)
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akes several microns in lateral size and tens of nanometer
thick were formed, indicating the signicant mass transport
takes place during the growth. MoS
2
akes (sample D) with
sharp edges and corners were found on the surface with sides
parallel to step-edge of sapphire substrate which is an indica-
tion that the layers perhaps are grown epitaxially.
Further detailed analysis of the AFM image of sample C
shown in Figs. S3(a) and S3(b)
20
reveals that the step edges
are 0.56 nm thick, approximately equal to one atomic mono-
layer of MoS
2
.
1
Spiral growth features similar to those seen
in other material systems
21
were also evident. The white dots
in the image (Fig. S3(a)
20
) are due to excess sulfur droplets
which can be removed with a chemical clean (Fig. S2(b)
20
).
All the samples show room temperature photolumines-
cence (PL). The PL spectra of sample C (Fig. S3(c)
20
) show a
peak at 570 nm (2.17 eV), and an additional shoulder at
700 nm (1.77 eV). These peak positions are at a higher energy
than reported earlier for multilayer exfoliated lms
22
and
CVD single-layer lms,
23
indicating that the optical proper-
ties of the CVD lms reported here are probably different
from those cases, and further investigation is needed to
understand these phenomena better. An optical image shows
the lm is continuous and specular over a 2 in. length scale
(Fig. S3(d)
20
). The width of the lm (or substrate) was lim-
ited in our experiments by diameter of the quartz tube (1 cm),
but could be scaled up.
Samples were characterized using Raman spectroscopy
(Renishaw, 514 nm laser and 60 mW power). The
characteristic Raman peaks for the E
1
2g
and A
1g
vibration
modes appear at 382 cm
1
and 407 cm
1
for all samples, and
their separation D25 cm
1
corresponds to the bulk MoS
2
lms.
24
In Fig. 2(a), the Raman peaks observed from samples
A and B taken under identical conditions are shown. In the
case of the lowest growth temperature (500
C) sample A, the
intensity of E
1
2g
peak was lower than the A
1g
peak, whereas
the opposite was seen in bulk geological MoS
2
. This is similar
to the ratio of the Raman peaks from previous reports on
CVD,
12,13
and indicative of low structural quality in the lm.
In sample B, which was grown at a higher temperature, how-
ever, the overall intensity of the peaks increased and the rela-
tive ratio, of the E
1
2g
the A
1g
peaks were similar to high-
quality exfoliated MoS
2
. Samples C and D, which were grown
at even higher temperatures, showed similar ratios (i.e., E
1
2g
peak greater than A
1g
), but with intensity that was 50 times
higher than sample B. This suggests that structural quality in
these lms was signicantly higher than samples A or B and
the high growth temperature is critical for the formation of
high quality MoS
2
. In Fig. 2(b), Raman measurements of sam-
ple C and thick akes from a commercial SPI MoS
2
wafer are
compared. With equal laser power (1% laser power), the width
and intensity of the peaks are almost identical. The full width
at half maximum (FWHM) of the Raman peak can be corre-
lated with the quality of the lm, and as expected (Fig. 2(c))
the FWHM decreases with increasing temperature of sulfuri-
zation, approaching that of commercial MoS
2
. The intensity
ratios of E
1
2g
and A
1g
peaks as a function of growth
FIG. 1. Atomic force micrographs of (a) sample A (500
C) and sample D
(1100
C) shows perfect
stacking of MoS
2
layers with (0001) orientation and (b) plan view selective
area diffraction pattern from MoS
2
conrms single crystalline quality of the
lm.
252108-4 Laskar et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 252108 (2013)
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