Quantitative relationship between sputter-deposited-MoS₂ properties and underlying-SiO₂ surface roughness

Abstract

Substrate roughness affects the physical and electrical properties of deposited layered materials. However, the quantitative relationship is unknown. In this work, a quantitative analysis of sputter-deposited MoS2 films on an SiO2 substrate was conducted. Flattening the substrate helped realize an MoS2 structure closer to the ideal honeycomb structure and a Hall mobility of ∼26 cm2/(V·s) and a carrier density of ∼1016 cm−3 (less than that of exfoliated MoS2 by 104). These results stress the necessity of considering even roughness of the order of angstroms to improve the physical and electrical properties of atomically layered functional devices.