Epitaxial registry and crystallinity of MoS2 via molecular beam and metalorganic vapor phase van der Waals epitaxy

Abstract

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors have risen as an important material class for novel nanoelectronic applications. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is the most representative TMD compound due to its superior stability and attractive properties for (opto-) electronic devices. However, the synthesis of single-crystalline and functional MoS2 across large-area substrates remains crucial for its successful integration in semiconductor industry platforms. Therefore, this work focuses on the study of MoS2 epitaxy via two well-established industry-compatible synthesis methods, promising for the large-area and single-crystalline integration of van der Waals (vdW) materials. These methods are molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) and have studied MoS2 quasi-vdW heteroepitaxy on reconstructed sapphire substrates and MoS2 vdW homoepitaxy on exfoliated MoS2 flakes. By examining the MoS2 structural properties using diffraction and spectroscopy techniques, the epitaxial relation and crystal quality are assessed, which reveals insights into the prevalence of inter- and intragrain defects such as grain boundaries and sulfur vacancies. The MBE method yields superior epitaxial MoS2 registry on both sapphire and MoS2 surfaces as compared to MOVPE, although inferior defectivity arises from the typical lower MBE growth temperature and chalcogen partial pressure. Moreover, both synthesis methods generate high densities of twinned MoS2 grain boundaries, which hamper defect-free integration. As a result, this challenging integration might become an important bottleneck for industrial TMD-based applications with a low tolerance for material defects.