Lateral electrodeposition of MoS2 semiconductor over an insulator

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel electrochemical method for lateral growth of MoS2 over insulators, enabling scalable, site-selective 2D material deposition for optoelectronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces a new lateral electrodeposition technique for MoS2, demonstrating anisotropic growth and device integration on insulators with potential for scalable manufacturing.

Findings

Lateral MoS2 growth achieved using microelectrodes across insulators.

Growth rate is highly anisotropic with >20-fold lateral to vertical ratio.

Electrodeposited MoS2 exhibits semiconductor behavior suitable for photodetectors.

Abstract

Developing novel techniques for depositing transition metal dichalcogenides is crucial for the industrial adoption of 2D materials in optoelectronics. In this work, the lateral growth of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) over an insulating surface is demonstrated using electrochemical deposition. By fabricating a new type of microelectrodes, MoS2 2D films grown from TiN electrodes across opposite sides have been connected over an insulating substrate, hence, forming a lateral device structure through only one lithography and deposition step. Using a variety of characterization techniques, the growth rate of MoS2 has been shown to be highly anisotropic with lateral to vertical growth ratios exceeding 20-fold. Electronic and photo-response measurements on the device structures demonstrate that the electrodeposited MoS2 layers behave like semiconductors, confirming their potential for photodetection applications. This lateral growth technique paves the way towards room temperature, scalable and site-selective production of various transition metal dichalcogenides and their lateral heterostructures for 2D materials-based fabricated devices.