High-Fidelity Transfer of Chemical Vapor Deposition Grown 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides via Substrate Decoupling and Polymer/Small Molecule Composite

Current polymeric transfer methods of 2D materials often bring about the presence of wrinkles, cracks, and polymer residue, limiting the quality of the transferred materials and performance of devices. Herein, we report a transfer approach combining pretreatment by liquid nitrogen and lithium ion intercalation with polymer composite of small molecules and polystyrene to achieve high-fidelity transfer of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) grown by chemical vapor deposition. In this method, the as-grown samples were pretreated by liquid nitrogen and lithium ion intercalation to weaken the bonding between the TMD and the substrate. A polymer composite incorporating small molecules, namely camphor or naphthalene, was used to increase the dissolution of the polymer film. These two processes work synergistically to enable nearly 100% transfer of monolayer TMDs virtually free of wrinkles, cracks, or organic residue with retained optical properties. Our technique can be generalized for the efficient and high quality transfer of other 2D materials.