Improved strain engineering of 2D materials by adamantane plasma polymer encapsulation

Two-dimensional materials present exceptional crystal elasticity and provide an ideal platform to tune electrical and optical properties through the application of strain. Here we extend recent research on strain engineering in monolayer molybdenum disulfide using an adamantane plasma polymer pinning layer to achieve unprecedented crystal strains of 2.8%. Using micro-reflectance spectroscopy, we report maximum strain gauge factors of −99.5 meV/% and −63.5 meV/% for the A and B exciton of monolayer MoS2, respectively, with a 50 nm adamantane capping layer. These results are corroborated with photoluminescence and Raman measurements on the same samples. Taken together, our results indicate that adamantane polymer is an exceptional capping layer to transfer substrate-induced strain to a 2D layer and achieve higher levels of crystal strain.