Scalable growth of optically uniform MoWS2 alloys by sulfurization of ultrathin Mo/W stacks

Panasci, Salvatore Ethan and Schilirò, Emanuela and Koós, Antal Adolf and Kutlu, Tayfun and Sahin, Hasan and Roccaforte, Fabrizio and Pécz, Béla and Giannazzo, Filippo (2025) Scalable growth of optically uniform MoWS2 alloys by sulfurization of ultrathin Mo/W stacks. MATERIALS SCIENCE IN SEMICONDUCTOR PROCESSING, 196. No. 109648. ISSN 1369-8001

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Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) ternary alloys, such as MoxW1-xS2, are very appealing for the possibility of continuously tuning their excitonic bandgap by the composition. However, the deposition of ultra-thin (monolayers or few-layers) alloys with laterally uniform composition on large area represents a main challenge of currently adopted synthesis methods. In this work, we demonstrated the growth of highly uniform Mo0.5W0.5S2 bi-layers on cm2 size SiO2/Si substrates by employing a simple and scalable approach, i.e. the sulfurization of a pre-deposited ultra-thin Mo/W stack at a temperature of 700 ◦C. Comparison of Mo(1.2 nm)/SiO2, W(1.2 nm)/SiO2, and Mo(1.2 nm)/W(1.2 nm)/SiO2 samples after identical sulfurization conditions revealed very different results, i.e. (i) a uniform monolayer (1L) MoS2 film, (ii) separated multilayer WS2 islands, and (iii) a uniform bilayer (2L) Mo0.5W0.5S2 film. This indicates how W surface diffusion and coalescence on SiO2 surface plays a main role in WS2 islands formation, whereas the reaction between S vapour with Mo films or Mo/W stacks represents the dominant mechanism for the formation of MoS2 and the MoWS2 alloy. Micro-photoluminescence (PL) mapping of the obtained 2L-Mo0.5W0.5S2 film showed an excellent uniformity of light emission on large area with an exciton peak at 1.97 eV, significantly blue-shifted with respect to PL emission of 1L-MoS2 at 1.86 eV. Such highly uniform optical properties make the grown MoWS2 alloy very promising for optoelectronic applications.

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