Spiral Growth of Few-Layer MoS2 by Chemical Vapor Deposition

Monolayer and few-layer transition metal dichalcogenide MoS2 are grown by chemical vapor deposition on SiO2/Si substrates using MoO3 and S powder as precursors. Before growth, the substrates are pretreated with perylene-3, 4, 9, 10-tetracarboxylic acid tetrapotassium salt to promote nucleation. Monolayer MoS2 islands are triangularly shaped with sizes ranging from a few to tens of micrometers, which also exhibits the characteristic Raman bands at 403.36 and 385.05 cm-1 corresponding to the A1g and E2g modes, respectively. Atomic force microscopy imaging further confirms the monolayer thickness to be 0.8 nm. For few-layer MoS2 films, triangular spirals are observed with both left- and right-handed chirality. Raman spectra showed interesting features of these growth spirals, the details of which will be presented at the meeting.