Controllable substitutional vanadium doping in wafer-scale molybdenum disulfide films

Substitutional atomic doping of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) in the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process is a promising and effective strategy for modifying their physicochemical properties. However, the conventional CVD method only allows narrow-range modulation of the dopant concentration owing to the low reactivity of the precursors. Moreover, the growth of wafer-scale monolayer TMD films with high dopant concentrations is much more challenging. Herein, we report a facile doping approach based on liquid precursor-mediated CVD process for achieving high vanadium (V) doping in the MoS2 lattice with excellent doping uniformity and stability. The lateral growth of the host MoS2 lattice and the reactivity of the V precursor were simultaneously improved by introducing an alkali metal halide as a reaction promoter. The metal halide promoter enabled the wafer-scale synthesis of V-incorporated MoS2 monolayer film with excessively high doping concentrations. The excellent wafer-scale uniformity of the highly V-doped MoS2 film was confirmed through a series of microscopic, spectroscopic, and electrical analyses.