Growth of Two-dimensional Compound Materials: Controllability, Material Quality, and Growth Mechanism

TL;DR

This paper reviews the progress, challenges, and strategies in chemical vapor deposition growth of high-quality 2D compound materials, focusing on controllability, growth mechanisms, and material quality improvements.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current growth strategies, key technological issues, and understanding of growth mechanisms for 2D compound materials via CVD, guiding future development.

Findings

Identification of key factors affecting CVD growth, such as precursors, substrate, temperature, and gas flow.

Discussion of methods to improve the quality of CVD-grown 2D materials.

Analysis of growth mechanisms to enhance controllability and repeatability.

Abstract

CONSPECTUS: Two-dimensional (2D) compound materials are promising materials for use in electronics, optoelectronics, flexible devices, etc. because they are ultrathin and cover a wide range of properties. Among all methods to prepare 2D materials, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is promising because it produces materials with a high quality and reasonable cost. So far, much efforts have been made to produce 2D compound materials with large domain size, controllable number of layers, fast-growth rate, and high quality features, etc. However, due to the complicated growth mechanism like sublimation and diffusion processes of multiple precursors, maintaining the controllability, repeatability, and high quality of CVD grown 2D binary and ternary materials is still a big challenge, which prevents their widespread use. Here, taking 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) as examples, we review current progress and highlight some promising growth strategies for the growth of 2D compound materials. The key technology issues which affect the CVD process, including non-metal precursor, metal precursor, substrate engineering, temperature, and gas flow, are discussed. Also, methods in improving the quality of CVD-grown 2D materials and current understanding on their growth mechanism are highlighted. Finally, challenges and opportunities in this field are proposed. We believe this review will guide the future design of controllable CVD systems for the growth of 2D compound materials with good controllability and high quality, laying the foundations for their potential applications.