Metal−organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) is one of the main methodologies used for thin-film fabrication in the semiconductor industry today and is considered one of the most promising routes to achieve large-scale and high-quality 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). However, if special measures are not taken, MOCVD suffers from some serious drawbacks, such as small domain size and carbon contamination, resulting in poor optical and crystal quality, which may inhibit its implementation for the large-scale fabrication of atomic-thin semiconductors. Here we present a growthetch MOCVD (GE-MOCVD) methodology, in which a small amount of water vapor is introduced during the growth, while the precursors are delivered in pulses. The evolution of the growth as a function of the amount of water vapor, the number and type of cycles, and the gas composition is described. We show a significant domain size increase is achieved relative to our conventional process. The improved crystal quality of WS 2 (and WSe 2 ) domains wasis demonstrated by means of Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, and HRTEM studies. Moreover, time-resolved PL studies show very long exciton lifetimes, comparable to those observed in mechanically exfoliated flakes. Thus, the GE-MOCVD approach presented here may facilitate their integration into a wide range of applications.

Despite a tremendous interest on molybdenum disulfide as a thinnest direct band gap semiconductor, single step synthesis of a large area purely monolayer MoS2 film has not yet been reported. Here, we report a CVD route to synthesize a continuous film of strictly monolayer MoS2 covering an area as large as a few cm2 on a variety of different substrates without using any seeding material or any elaborate pretreatment of the substrate. This is achieved by allowing the growth to take place in the naturally formed gap between a piece of SiO2 coated Si wafer and the substrate, when the latter is placed on top of the former inside a CVD reactor. We propose a qualitative model to explain why the MoS2 films are always strictly monolayer in this method. The photoluminescence study of these monolayers shows the characteristic excitonic and trionic features associated with monolayer MoS2. In addition, a broad defect related luminescence band appears at ∼1.7 eV. As temperature decreases, the intensity of this broad feature increases, while the band edge luminescence reduces.

The formation of lateral heterojunction arrays within two-dimensional (2D) crystals is an essential step to realize high-density, ultrathin electro-optical integrated circuits, although the assembling of such structures remains elusive. Here we demonstrated a rapid, scalable, and site-specific integration of lateral 2D heterojunction arrays using few-layer indium selenide (In 2 Se 3 ). We use a scanning laser probe to locally convert In 2 Se 3 into In 2 O 3 , which shows a significant increase in carrier mobility and transforms the metal−semiconductor junctions from Schottky to ohmic type. In addition, a lateral p−n heterojunction diode within a single nanosheet is demonstrated and utilized for photosensing applications. The presented method enables high-yield, site-specific formation of lateral 2D In 2 Se 3 −In 2 O 3 -based hybrid heterojunctions for realizing nanoscale devices with multiple advanced functionalities.

Modulation of photoluminescence of atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenide two-dimensional materials is critical for their integration in optoelectronic and photonic device applications. By coupling with different plasmonic array geometries, we have shown that the photoluminescence intensity can be enhanced and quenched in comparison with pristine monolayer MoS2. The enhanced exciton emission intensity can be further tuned by varying the angle of polarized incident excitation. Through controlled variation of the structural parameters of the plasmonic array in our experiment, we demonstrate modulation of the photoluminescence intensity from nearly fourfold quenching to approximately threefold enhancement. Our data indicates that the plasmonic resonance couples to optical fields at both, excitation and emission bands, and increases the spontaneous emission rate in a double spacing plasmonic array structure as compared with an equal spacing array structure. Furthermore our experimental results are supported by numerical as well as full electromagnetic wave simulations. This study can facilitate the incorporation of plasmon-enhanced transition metal dichalcogenide structures in photodetector, sensor and light emitter applications.

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