An innovative way of etching MoS2: Characterization and mechanistic investigation

Abstract

We report a systematic study of the etching of MoS2 crystals by using XeF2 as a gaseous reactant. By controlling the etching process, monolayer MoS2 with uniform morphology can be obtained. The Raman and photoluminescence spectra of the resulting material were similar to those of exfoliated MoS2. Utilizing this strategy, different patterns such as a Hall bar structure and a hexagonal array can be realized. Furthermore, the etching mechanism was studied by introducing graphene as an etching mask. We believe our technique opens an easy and controllable way of etching MoS2, which can be used to fabricate complex nanostructures, such as nanoribbons, quantum dots and transistor structures. This etching process using XeF2 can also be extended to other interesting two-dimensional crystals.

22 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (12)

• The electronic properties of graphene
• The Raman Fingerprint of Graphene
• Anomalous Lattice Vibrations of Single and Few-Layer MoS2
• Hunting for Monolayer Boron Nitride: Optical and Raman Signatures
• Elastic properties of freely suspended MoS2 nanosheets
• Laser-thinning of MoS2: on demand generation of a single-layer semiconductor
• Mechanical and Electronic Properties of MoS${}_2$ Nanoribbons and Their Defects
• Quantum dots in graphene
• Surface State Transport and Ambipolar Electric Field Effect in Bi2Se3 Nanodevices
• Graphene-Ferroelectric Hybrid Structure for Flexible Transparent Electrodes
• Quasi-Periodic Nanoripples in Graphene Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition and Its Impact on Charge Transport
• Patterning Nanoroads and Quantum Dots on Fluorinated Graphene

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Covalent Nitrogen Doping and Compressive Strain in MoS2 by Remote N2 Plasma Exposure
• Large Thermoelectricity via Variable Range Hopping in Chemical Vapor Deposition Grown Single-layer MoS2
• Thickness Scaling Effect on Interfacial Barrier and Electrical Contact to Two-Dimensional MoS2 Layers
• Super-Resolution Nanolithography of Two-Dimensional Materials by Anisotropic Etching
• Topography preserved microwave plasma etching for top-down layer engineering in MoS2 and other van der Waals materials
• Finger-gate manipulated quantum transport in Dirac materials
• Single Photon Emission from Plasma Treated 2D Hexagonal Boron Nitride
• Layered semiconductor devices with water top-gates: High on-off ratio field-effect transistors and aqueous sensors