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Two-dimensional Czochralski growth of single-crystal MoS2

Nature Materials volume 24, pages 188–196 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Batch production of single-crystal two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides is one prerequisite for the fabrication of next-generation integrated circuits. Contemporary strategies for the wafer-scale high-quality crystallinity of 2D materials centre on merging unidirectionally aligned, differently sized domains. However, an imperfectly merged area with a translational lattice brings about a high defect density and low device uniformity, which restricts the application of the 2D materials. Here we establish a liquid-to-solid crystallization in 2D space that can rapidly grow a centimetre-scale single-crystal MoS2 domain with no grain boundaries. The large MoS2 single crystal obtained shows superb uniformity and high quality with an ultra-low defect density. A statistical analysis of field effect transistors fabricated from the MoS2 reveals a high device yield and minimal variation in mobility, positioning this FET as an advanced standard monolayer MoS2 device. This 2D Czochralski method has implications for fabricating high-quality and scalable 2D semiconductor materials and devices.

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Fig. 1: Crystallization of 2DCZ for large-scale, high-quality MoS2 domain.
Fig. 2: T2DCZ mechanism.
Fig. 3: Transfer and adhesion between MoS2 and substrate.
Fig. 4: Characterization of uniformity and crystal quality of MoS2.
Fig. 5: Electronic characterizations of the MoS2 FETs.

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All data are available in the main text or Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 52225206, 51991340, 92163205, 52188101, 62322402, 52350301, 62204012, 51991342, 52250398, 52303362 and 62304019), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant numbers 2022YFA1203800 and 2022YFA1203803), the Beijing Nova Program (grant numbers 20220484145 and 20230484478), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant numbers FRF-TP-22-004C2, FRF-06500207, FRF-TP-22-004A1, FRF-IDRY-22-016 and FRF-IDRY-23-038), the State Key Lab for Advanced Metals and Materials (number 2023-Z05) and special support from the Postdoctoral Science Foundation (number 8206400173).

We are grateful for the help with STEM provided by Q. Zhang of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and B. Han of Peking University. We are grateful to H. Guo and G. Li at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for the help with LEED. We thank X. Liu and Y. Tian at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology for the low-temperature PL characteristics. We are grateful to G. Zhang and Y. Xiong of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for STM characteristics. We are grateful to J. Shang, H. Zhao, Y. Geng and C. Chen of the University of Science and Technology Beijing for the preparation of FETs. We are grateful to Y. Yu at the Southern University of Science and Technology for constructive discussions. We are grateful to Y. Wang and H. He of the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences for constructive discussions.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: He Jiang, Xiankun Zhang, Kuanglei Chen, Xiaoyu He.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Devices for Post-Moore Chips Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, P. R. China

    He Jiang, Xiankun Zhang, Kuanglei Chen, Xiaoyu He, Yihe Liu, Huihui Yu, Li Gao, Mengyu Hong, Yunan Wang, Zheng Zhang & Yue Zhang

  2. Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory for Advanced Energy Materials and Technologies, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, P. R. China

    He Jiang, Xiankun Zhang, Kuanglei Chen, Xiaoyu He, Yihe Liu, Huihui Yu, Li Gao, Mengyu Hong, Yunan Wang, Zheng Zhang & Yue Zhang

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Contributions

H.J., Z.Z. and Y.Z. initiated and supervised the project. H.J. and X.Z. created the MoS2 monolayers using the 2DCZ method. K.C., X.H. and Y.W. performed device fabrication, data collection and analysis. Y.L., H.Y., L.G. and M.H. assisted in carrying out the mechanism. L.G. performed part of the Raman, PL, LEED and characterization analyses. H.Y. performed the AFM analysis and nano-scratch test. H.J., K.C., X.H., Z.Z., X.Z. and Y.Z. cowrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zheng Zhang or Yue Zhang.

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Peer review information

Nature Materials thanks Jong-Hyun Ahn, Lain-Jong Li and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–16, Table 1 and references.

Supplementary Video 1

In situ imaging of 2DCZ.

Supplementary Video 2

The spreading process of the 2D liquid precursor.

Supplementary Video 3

The water-assisted transfer process (×20).

Supplementary Video 4

The fully spontaneous transfer process.

Supplementary Table 1

Comparison of growth and performance of large-area MoS2 materials with reported works.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Benchmark comparison and comparison of defect density.

Source Data Fig. 4

Statistical distribution of the Raman peak difference; Raman line scan contour map covering a centimetre length range; and statistical bar graph showing defect density observed in HAADF-STEM images.

Source Data Fig. 5

Transfer characteristics of FET array; statistical distribution of SS, mobility and Vth; output characteristics; and transfer characteristics of the short-channel FET.

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Jiang, H., Zhang, X., Chen, K. et al. Two-dimensional Czochralski growth of single-crystal MoS2. Nat. Mater. 24, 188–196 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-02069-7

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