A comprehensive review on synthesis and applications of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) material: Past and recent developments

The evolutions of nanomaterials have played a significant role in altering the shape and structure of the materials at the nanoscale level to achieve desired applications. Early carbon nanotubes were considered to be an optimistic material for electronics but their incapacity to differentiate semiconducting and metallic phases results into development of Quasi two dimensional (Q2D) materials which include graphene, black phosphorous, 2D ZnO, hexagonal boron nitride, 2D honeycomb silicon, and layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) like molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and Tungsten disulfide (WS2). Among them, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is considered as convincingly multipurpose material because it exhibits a capacity to show different properties as it changes from bulk to nanoscale. Single layer MoS2 is assuredly capable of post-silicon electronics due to its direct bandgap value i.e. (~1.9 eV). It exhibits a high on/off current ratio (108) at room temperature and mobility of about 200 cm2 (Vs)−1. Also based on structure, MoS2 has two characteristics (i) it possesses a hexagonal arrangement in which S-Mo-S atomic layers are covalently bonded (ii) Van der Waals interaction lies between the adjacent layers of MoS2 that makes it suitable for gas sensing purpose. At 300 K, MoS2 comprises thermal conductivity value 131 Wm−1 k−1. MoS2 consists of different polytypes. The promising properties and characteristics of MoS2 make it suitable for various practical applications. In this review, we try to cover the recent and past developments carried out in the field of 2D MoS2 material.