Synthesis and characterization of large-sized monolayer MoS₂ nanoflakes by sulfurization of exfoliated MoO₃ powder

We demonstrate a novel approach based on sulfurization of MoO3 powder pre-exfoliated on the SiO2/Si substrate to synthesize high crystalline quality and large-sized monolayer MoS2 films uniformly covering the whole substrate. The surface morphology, thickness, crystalline quality, and luminescence mechanism of the MoS2 films were characterized by the optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The results reveal that MoS2 films directly synthesized on the bare SiO2/Si substrate by our method have high surface coverage superior over those of one-step chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method and exhibit uniform monolayer with larger lateral length up to ∼120 µm compared to those of the traditional two-step CVD method. Our proposed growth strategy opens up new pathways for CVD synthesis of high crystalline quality and large-sized uniform monolayer MoS2 films and can also be utilized for synthesizing other two-dimensional materials.