Controlled growth of millimeter-size continuous bilayer MoS2 films on SiO2 substrates by chemical vapour deposition technique

Abstract

Bilayer (2 L) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) have the ability to host interlayer excitons, where electron and hole parts are spatially separated that leads to much longer lifetime as compared to direct excitons. This property can be utilized for the development of exciton-based logic devices, which are supposed to be superior in terms of energy efficiency and optical communication compatibility as compared to their electronic counterparts. However, obtaining uniformly thick bilayer epitaxial films with large area coverage is challenging. Here, we have engineered the flow pattern of the precursors over the substrate surface to obtain continuous strictly bilayer MoS₂ films covering several tens of mm² on SiO₂ by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) technique without any plasma treatment of the substrate prior to the growth. Bilayer nature of these films is confirmed by Raman, low-frequency Raman, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and photoluminescence (PL) studies. The uniformity of the film has been checked by Raman peak separation and PL intensity map. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) reveals that crystalline and twisted bilayer islands coexist within the layer. Back gated field-effect transistor (FET) structures fabricated on the bilayers show on/off ratio of 10⁶ and subthreshold swings (SS) of 2.5V/Decade.