Controllable preparation of monolayer MoO3/MoOx by using plasma oxidation and atomic layer etching

Abstract In this letter, we propose two different methods to prepare monolayer MoO3 and MoOx by low-temperature inductively coupled plasma etching technology. The monolayer MoO3 is obtained by soft oxygen plasma oxidation of monolayer MoS2 due to the high specific surface area. The monolayer MoOx is prepared through plasma oxidation and atomic layer-by-layer etching of multilayer MoS2 due to the weak van der Waals interaction between the layers. It is proved that the prepared monolayer molybdenum oxide has good surface morphology and highly controllable components. The proposed process can precisely control the thickness of molybdenum oxide and has good uniformity and higher selectivity. This work could promote the application of atomically thin transition metal oxides in two-dimensional materials based electronic devices and its integration.