Title:Pulsed thermal deposition of binary and ternary transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers and heterostructures

Abstract:Application of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC) in photonic, optoelectronic or valleytronic devices requires the growth of continuous monolayers, heterostructures and alloys of different materials in a single process. We present a facile pulsed thermal deposition method which provides precise control over layer thickness and stoichiometry of two-dimensional systems. The versatility of the method is demonstrated on ternary monolayers of Mo$_{1-x}$W$_{x}$S$_{2}$ and on heterostructures combining metallic TaS$_{2}$ and semiconducting MoS$_{2}$ layers. The fabricated ternary monolayers cover the entire composition range of $x$ = 0...1 without phase separation. Band gap engineering and control over the spin-orbit coupling strength is demonstrated by absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Vertical heterostructures are grown without intermixing. The formation of clean and atomically abrupt interfaces is evidenced by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Since both the metal components as well as the chalcogenides are thermally evaporated complex alloys and heterostructures can thus be prepared.