Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on metal substrates has recently been discovered to present an alternative method for producing highly crystalline few-layer MoS2. However, not every metal behaves in the same manner during film growth, and hence, it is crucial that the ability of various metals to produce crystalline MoS2 be thoroughly investigated. In this work, MoS2 was deposited on metal substrates, Al, Ag, Ni, and Cu, using a pulsed laser. Highly crystalline few-layer MoS2 was successfully grown on Ag, but is absent in Al, Ni, and Cu under specific growth conditions. This discrepancy was attributed to either excessively strong or insufficient adlayer-substrate interactions. In the case of Al, the effects of the strong interface interactions can be offset by increasing the amount of source atoms supplied, thereby producing semicrystalline few-layer MoS2. The results show that despite PLD being a physical vapor deposition technique, both physical and chemical processes play an important role in MoS2 growth on metal substrates.
Keywords: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; conventional epitaxy; few-layer MoS2; metal support; pulsed laser.