Reconfiguring nucleation for CVD growth of twisted bilayer MoS2 with a wide range of twist angles

Manzhang Xu; Hongjia Ji; Lu Zheng; Weiwei Li; Jing Wang; Hanxin Wang; Lei Luo; Qianbo Lu; Xuetao Gan; Zheng Liu; Xuewen Wang; Wei Huang

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-44598-w

Reconfiguring nucleation for CVD growth of twisted bilayer MoS₂ with a wide range of twist angles

Nat Commun. 2024 Jan 17;15(1):562. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44598-w.

Authors

Manzhang Xu^#^{1

2

3}, Hongjia Ji^#¹, Lu Zheng^{1

2

3}, Weiwei Li^{1

2

3}, Jing Wang⁴, Hanxin Wang¹, Lei Luo¹, Qianbo Lu^{1

2

3}, Xuetao Gan⁴, Zheng Liu^{5

6

7}, Xuewen Wang^{8

9

10}, Wei Huang^{11

12

13

14

15}

Affiliations

¹ Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE) & Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China.
² MIIT Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China.
³ Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Light Field Manipulation and Information Acquisition, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Optical Information Technology, School of Physical Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710129, P. R. China.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
⁶ CINTRA CNRS/NTU/THALES, UMI 3288, Research Techno Plaza, 50 Nanyang Drive, Border X Block, Level 6, Singapore, 637553, Singapore.
⁷ School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
⁸ Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE) & Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. iamxwwang@nwpu.edu.cn.
⁹ MIIT Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. iamxwwang@nwpu.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. iamxwwang@nwpu.edu.cn.
¹¹ Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE) & Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. vc@nwpu.edu.cn.
¹² MIIT Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. vc@nwpu.edu.cn.
¹³ Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. vc@nwpu.edu.cn.
¹⁴ State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Displays, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, P. R. China. vc@nwpu.edu.cn.
¹⁵ Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Nanjing Tech University (NanjingTech), Nanjing, 211800, P. R. China. vc@nwpu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Twisted bilayer (TB) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) beyond TB-graphene are considered an ideal platform for investigating condensed matter physics, due to the moiré superlattices-related peculiar band structures and distinct electronic properties. The growth of large-area and high-quality TB-TMDCs with wide twist angles would be significant for exploring twist angle-dependent physics and applications, but remains challenging to implement. Here, we propose a reconfiguring nucleation chemical vapor deposition (CVD) strategy for directly synthesizing TB-MoS₂ with twist angles from 0° to 120°. The twist angles-dependent Moiré periodicity can be clearly observed, and the interlayer coupling shows a strong relationship to the twist angles. Moreover, the yield of TB-MoS₂ in bilayer MoS₂ and density of TB-MoS₂ are significantly improved to 17.2% and 28.9 pieces/mm² by tailoring gas flow rate and molar ratio of NaCl to MoO₃. The proposed reconfiguring nucleation approach opens an avenue for the precise growth of TB-TMDCs for both fundamental research and practical applications.