Fig. 3

Simulation and experimental results for MoS₂ island morphology distribution at 800 °C. a Initial precursor concentration distribution from FEM. b Phase-field simulation results for MoS₂ morphology on substrate at t = 0.25 h, the enlarged images of i–iii boxes are shown in (d–f). c Experimental results for deposition of MoS₂ after deposition for t = 0.25 h, the enlarged images of 1–3 boxes are shown in (g–i). d–f Enlarged images for the selected microscopic regions marked by the boxes in (b). g–i Experimental results on morphology of as-grown MoS₂ for selected regions in c. Comparing (d–f) with (g–i) shows an excellent match between simulation and experiment