Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition of few layer MoS2

Due to its remarkable electronic and optical properties, few layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has received intense interest for its use in a variety of devices. However, achieving highly uniform, large area MoS2 is still a challenge. Here, we use Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PE-CVD) to grow centimeter-scale, few-layer MoS2 on thermally oxidized silicon with an argon carrier gas over a wide temperature range using MoO3 and S solid phase precursors. These results were compared to standard LPCVD using Raman spectroscopy, X-Ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy. Our results show that the presence of an argon plasma results in a larger nucleation density, smaller grain size, and ultimately a more uniform thin film sample, in line with recent works focusing on graphene. Further, the plasma promotes larger growth regions at lower temperatures as compared to LPCVD.