Low pressure sulfurization and characterization of multilayer MoS₂ for potential applications in supercapacitors

The emergence of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) has prompted enormous research attention as supercapacitor electrode materials due to their exciting electrochemical, electrical and mechanical properties. In this work, we present a low-pressure technique to grow multilayer MoS₂ by sulfurization of molybdenum thin films at three different temperatures (700, 750 and 800 °C) to study the effect of growth temperatures on surface morphology, film thickness and film quality. Large area growth of MoS₂ throughout the Si/SiO₂ substrate was achieved at all the sulfurization temperature. The as-prepared MoS₂ films were characterized by several techniques including X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Although MoS₂ is successfully grown at different temperatures, the surface morphology, thickness and crystallite size have varied significantly with temperature. Our results presented here will contribute towards the reproducible growth of large area MoS₂ at the desired temperature for energy storage applications.