title: Protecting the properties of monolayer MoS₂ on silicon based substrates with an atomically thin buffer.
abstract: Semiconducting 2D materials, like transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), have gained much attention for their potential in opto-electronic devices, valleytronic schemes, and semi-conducting to metallic phase engineering. However, like graphene and other atomically thin materials, they lose key properties when placed on a substrate like silicon, including quenching of photoluminescence, distorted crystalline structure, and rough surface morphology. The ability to protect these properties of monolayer TMDs, such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), on standard Si-based substrates, will enable their use in opto-electronic devices and scientific investigations. Here we show that an atomically thin buffer layer of hexagonal-boron nitride (hBN) protects the range of key opto-electronic, structural, and morphological properties of monolayer MoS2 on Si-based substrates. The hBN buffer restores sharp diffraction patterns, improves monolayer flatness by nearly two-orders of magnitude, and causes over an order of magnitude enhancement in photoluminescence, compared to bare Si and SiO2 substrates. Our demonstration provides a way of integrating MoS2 and other 2D monolayers onto standard Si-substrates, thus furthering their technological applications and scientific investigations.
authors: Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, 904-0495 Japan.
authors: Michael K L
authors: MK
authors: Man
authors: Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, 904-0495 Japan.
authors: Skylar
authors: S
authors: Deckoff-Jones
authors: Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, 904-0495 Japan.
authors: Andrew
authors: A
authors: Winchester
authors: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, 2106 H. H. Dow Bldg, 2300 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors: Guangsha
authors: G
authors: Shi
authors: Material Synthesis and Integrated Devices, MPA-11, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.
authors: Gautam
authors: G
authors: Gupta
authors: Material Synthesis and Integrated Devices, MPA-11, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.
authors: Aditya D
authors: AD
authors: Mohite
authors: Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
authors: Swastik
authors: S
authors: Kar
authors: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, 2106 H. H. Dow Bldg, 2300 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors: Emmanouil
authors: E
authors: Kioupakis
authors: Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, 904-0495 Japan.|Department of Physics, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois 62901, USA.
authors: Saikat
authors: S
authors: Talapatra
authors: Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, 904-0495 Japan.
authors: Keshav M
authors: KM
authors: Dani