Two-dimensional Czochralski growth of single-crystal MoS2

Nat Mater. 2025 Jan 10. doi: 10.1038/s41563-024-02069-7. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Batch production of single-crystal two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides is one prerequisite for the fabrication of next-generation integrated circuits. Contemporary strategies for the wafer-scale high-quality crystallinity of 2D materials centre on merging unidirectionally aligned, differently sized domains. However, an imperfectly merged area with a translational lattice brings about a high defect density and low device uniformity, which restricts the application of the 2D materials. Here we establish a liquid-to-solid crystallization in 2D space that can rapidly grow a centimetre-scale single-crystal MoS2 domain with no grain boundaries. The large MoS2 single crystal obtained shows superb uniformity and high quality with an ultra-low defect density. A statistical analysis of field effect transistors fabricated from the MoS2 reveals a high device yield and minimal variation in mobility, positioning this FET as an advanced standard monolayer MoS2 device. This 2D Czochralski method has implications for fabricating high-quality and scalable 2D semiconductor materials and devices.