Metal Mediated Exfoliation of Monolayer MoS2

Large area exfoliation of monolayer MoS$_{2}$ and other 2D materials using Au has attracted significant interest in recent years due to its promise in obtaining high quality single crystal in a scalable way. It has been suggested that the success of this method lies on the Au-MoS$_{2}$ binding energy that is stronger than the interlayer VdW interaction of MoS$_{2}$ as well as strain created between the lattice mismatch of Au and MoS$_{2}$. However, other metals (Pd, Pt, Cu, Ni, etc.\textellipsis ) have been predicted to have a stronger binding energy with MoS$_{2\, }$than Au, but a successful exfoliation of MoS$_{2}$ with other metals remains elusive. Raising question whether the metal-MoS$_{2}$ binding energy has any role in the large area exfoliation of monolayer MoS$_{2}$. Here, we present the result of our efforts in exfoliating monolayer MoS$_{2}$ with metals other than gold (such as Pd, Cu and Ni) along with detailed characterizations.