A team of researchers has developed a new method for exfoliating MoS2 flakes that produces very large and very thin flakes with high yield. The microwave-assisted exfoliation yields 50 times more flakes than those obtained by ultrasonication and gives a material quality comparable to mechanical exfoliation. This fast process requires minimal processing and holds promise to enable new applications in electronic and photonic devices.
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: ACS Nano A team of researchers has developed a new method for exfoliating MoS 2 flakes that produces very large and very thin flakes with high yield. The microwave-assisted exfoliation yields 50 times more flakes than those obtained by ultrasonication and gives a material quality comparable to mechanical exfoliation. This fast process requires minimal processing and holds promise to enable new applications in electronic and photonic devices. MoS 2 is a transition metal dichalcogenide, a material interesting in the field of electronics for its wide range of physical properties from semimetallic to semiconductors, superconductors or insulators, depending on its dimensions. The number of stacked layers is crucial in determining these properties. Monolayer MoS 2 , for instance, exhibits a direct bandgap of 1.90 eV, while bulk 2H-MoS 2 presents an indirect bandgap of 1.23 eV. These tailorable properties make them ideal candidates for applications. However, obtaining large area, high-quality MoS 2 flakes has proved challenging. Existing liquid-phase exfoliation methods have low yields and often result in broad thickness distributions, making it difficult to obtain monolayer and few-layered 2H-MoS 2 . In an attempt to improve yields, researchers have explored other techniques, including ball milling, electrochemical exfoliation, and fluid dynamics exfoliation. However, these methods have scalability problems or produce metallic 1T- MoS 2 , which has different properties and applications. The lateral dimension of the MoS2 flake…