High-Throughput Growth of Wafer-Scale Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenide via Vertical Ostwald Ripening

Adv Mater. 2020 Oct;32(42):e2003542. doi: 10.1002/adma.202003542. Epub 2020 Sep 16.

Abstract

For practical device applications, monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) films must meet key industry needs for batch processing, including the high-throughput, large-scale production of high-quality, spatially uniform materials, and reliable integration into devices. Here, high-throughput growth, completed in 12 min, of 6-inch wafer-scale monolayer MoS2 and WS2 is reported, which is directly compatible with scalable batch processing and device integration. Specifically, a pulsed metal-organic chemical vapor deposition process is developed, where periodic interruption of the precursor supply drives vertical Ostwald ripening, which prevents secondary nucleation despite high precursor concentrations. The as-grown TMD films show excellent spatial homogeneity and well-stitched grain boundaries, enabling facile transfer to various target substrates without degradation. Using these films, batch fabrication of high-performance field-effect transistor (FET) arrays in wafer-scale is demonstrated, and the FETs show remarkable uniformity. The high-throughput production and wafer-scale automatable transfer will facilitate the integration of TMDs into Si-complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor platforms.

Keywords: 2D materials; chemical vapor deposition; field-effect transistors; molybdenum disulfide; transition metal dichalcogenides.