Laser-thinning of MoS2: on demand generation of a single-layer semiconductor

Abstract

Single-layer MoS2 is an attractive semiconducting analogue of graphene that combines high mechanical flexibility with a large direct bandgap of 1.8 eV. On the other hand, bulk MoS2 is an indirect bandgap semiconductor similar to silicon, with a gap of 1.2 eV, and therefore deterministic preparation of single MoS2 layers is a crucial step towards exploiting the large direct bandgap of monolayer MoS2 in electronic, optoelectronic, and photovoltaic applications. Although mechanical and chemical exfoliation methods can be used to obtain high quality MoS2 single-layers, the lack of control in the thickness, shape, size, and position of the flakes limits their usefulness. Here we present a technique for controllably thinning multilayered MoS2 down to a single-layer two-dimensional crystal using a laser. We generate single layers in arbitrary shapes and patterns with feature sizes down to 200 nm, and show that the resulting two-dimensional crystals have optical and electronic properties comparable to that of pristine exfoliated MoS2 single layers.

18 pages, 11 figures (including supplementary info)

References in corpus (6)

• Two Dimensional Atomic Crystals
• Boron nitride substrates for high-quality graphene electronics
• Anomalous Lattice Vibrations of Single and Few-Layer MoS2
• Elastic properties of freely suspended MoS2 nanosheets
• Optical identification of atomically thin dichalcogenide crystals
• Surface State Transport and Ambipolar Electric Field Effect in Bi2Se3 Nanodevices

Cited by in corpus (24)

• Plasma-assisted fabrication of monolayer phosphorene and its Raman characterization
• Large and tunable photo-thermoelectric effect in single-layer MoS2
• Fabrication methods for integrating 2D materials
• Raman spectroscopy of the interlayer shear mode in few-layer MoS2 flakes
• Electric field screening in atomically thin layers of MoS2: the role of interlayer coupling
• Investigation of Band-Offsets at Monolayer-Multilayer MoS2 Junctions by Scanning Photocurrent Microscopy
• An innovative way of etching MoS2: Characterization and mechanistic investigation
• Thermal Oxidation of WSe2 Nano-sheets Adhered on SiO2/Si Substrates
• Structure, preparation, and applications of 2D material-based metal-semiconductor heterostructures
• Ultra-low power threshold for laser induced changes in optical properties of 2D Molybdenum dichalcogenides
• Transition metal dichalcogenide nanospheres for high-refractive-index nanophotonics and biomedical theranostics
• Intense femtosecond photoexcitation of bulk and monolayer MoS2
• Engineering the optoelectronic properties of MoS2 photodetectors through reversible noncovalent functionalization
• High-Q Tantalum Oxide Nanomechanical Resonators by Laser-Oxidation of TaSe2
• Ultrafast Laser Ablation, Intrinsic Threshold, and Nanopatterning of Monolayer Molybdenum Disulfide
• Topography preserved microwave plasma etching for top-down layer engineering in MoS2 and other van der Waals materials
• Non-invasive digital etching of van der Waals semiconductors
• Tunable Nanostructuring for van der Waals Materials
• Suppression of the Shear Raman Mode in Defective Bilayer MoS2
• An investigation on electronic and magnetic properties of Cr substituted MoS${}_2$ monolayer and multilayers-Hybrid functional calculations
• Noninvasive Photodelamination of van der Waals Semiconductors for High-Performance Electronics
• Direct transformation of crystalline MoO${}_3$ into few-layers MoS${}_2$
• Finger-gate manipulated quantum transport in Dirac materials
• Magnetism in $M_{1/3}$NbS${}_2$ ($M$ = Fe, V, Mn): insight into intercalated transition-metal dichalcogenides using $\mu$SR