Chemically Tailored Growth of 2D Semiconductors via Hybrid Metal–Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are an exciting platform for excitonic physics and next-generation electronics, creating a strong demand to understand their growth, doping, and heterostructures. Despite significant progress in solid-source (SS-) and metal–organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), further optimization is necessary to grow highly crystalline 2D TMDCs with controlled doping. Here, we report a hybrid MOCVD growth method that combines liquid-phase metal precursor deposition and vapor-phase organo-chalcogen delivery to leverage the advantages of both MOCVD and SS-CVD. Using our hybrid approach, we demonstrate WS2 growth with tunable morphologiesfrom separated single-crystal domains to continuous monolayer filmson a variety of substrates, including sapphire, SiO2, and Au. These WS2 films exhibit narrow neutral exciton photoluminescence line widths down to 27–28 meV and room-temperature mobility up to 34–36 cm2 V–1 s–1. Through simple modifications to the liquid precursor composition, we demonstrate the growth of V-doped WS2, Mo x W1–x S2 alloys, and in-plane WS2–MoS2 heterostructures. This work presents an efficient approach for addressing a variety of TMDC synthesis needs on a laboratory scale.