Quantifying photoluminescence variability in monolayer molybdenum disulfide films grown by chemical vapour deposition

Abstract Monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) is a promising candidate for inclusion in optoelectronic technologies, owing to its two-dimensional (2D) nature and resultant novel photoluminescence (PL). Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is an important method for the preparation of large-area films of monolayer MoS 2 . The PL character of as-prepared monolayer MoS 2 must be well understood to facilitate detailed evaluation of any process-induced effects during device fabrication. We comparatively explore the PL emission from four different commercially available CVD-grown MoS 2 monolayer films. We characterize the samples via Raman and PL spectroscopy, using both single-spot and mapping techniques, while atomic force microscopy (AFM) is applied to map the surface structure. Via multipeak fitting, we decompose the PL spectra into constituent exciton and trion contributions, enabling an assessment of the quality of the MoS 2 monolayers. We find that the PL character varies significantly from sample to sample. We also reveal substantial inhomogeneity of the PL signal across each individual MoS 2 film. We attribute the PL variation to non-uniform MoS 2 film morphologies that result from the nucleation and coalescence processes during the CVD film development. Understanding the large variability in starting PL behaviour is vital to optimize the optoelectronic properties for MoS 2 -based devices.