(Invited) Epitaxial Growth of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayers for Large Area Device Applications

Abstract

Wafer-scale epitaxial growth of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayers such as MoS2, WS2 and WSe2 is of significant interest for device applications to circumvent size limitations associated with the use of exfoliated flakes. Epitaxy is required to achieve single crystal films over large areas via coalescence of TMD domains. Our research has focused on epitaxial growth of 2D semiconducting TMDs on c-plane sapphire substrates using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Steps on the miscut sapphire surface serve as preferential sites for nucleation and can be used to induce a preferred crystallographic direction to the TMD domains which enables a reduction in twin boundaries in coalesced films. The step-directed growth is dependent on the surface termination of the sapphire which can be altered through pre-growth annealing in H2 and chalcogen-rich environments. Uniform growth of TMD monolayers with significantly reduced inversion domains is demonstrated on 2” diameter c-plane sapphire substrates enabling large area transfer of monolayers for characterization and device fabrication and testing. Applications for wafer-scale TMD monolayers in nanoelectronics, sensing and photonics will be discussed.