Making Patterned Single Defects in MoS2 Thermally with the MoS2/Au Moiré Interface

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 18; no. 40; pp. 27411 - 27419
• Main Authors: Bao, Yang, Shao, JingJing, Xu, Hai, Yan, Jiaxu, Jing, Peng-Tao, Xu, Jilian, Zhan, Da, Li, Binghui, Liu, Kewei, Liu, Lei, Shen, Dezhen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 08.10.2024
• Subjects: thermal annealing; single defects; MoS2; moiré interface; catalytic effect; acoustic phonons
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.4c07212

Normally, it is hard to regulate thermal defects precisely in their host lattice due to the stochastic nature of thermal activation. Here, we demonstrate a thermal annealing way to create patterned single sulfur vacancy (VS) defects in monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) with about 2 nm separations at subnanometer accuracy. Theoretically, we reveal that the S–Au interface coupling reduces the energy barriers in forming VS defects and that explains the overwhelming formation of interface VS defects. We also discover a phonon regulation mechanism by the moiré interface that effectively condenses the Γ-point out-of-plane acoustic phonons of monolayer MoS2 to its TOP moiré sites, which has been proposed to trigger moiré-patterned thermal VS formation. The high-throughput nanoscale patterned defects presented here may contribute to building scalable defect-based quantum systems.