The effect of carrier gas flow rate on the growth of MoS2 nanoflakes prepared by thermal chemical vapor deposition

Molybdenum disulfide nanoflakes (MoS2) are superior material for their semiconducting properties. For bulk and monolayer MoS2 the band gap changes from indirect-to-direct, respectively. So, it exhibits promising prospects in the applications of optoelectronics and valleytronics, such as solar cells, transistors, photodetectors, etc. In this research, the influence of different Ar flow rates as the carrier gas, is investigated for growing MoS2 nanoflakes on silicon substrates using one-step thermal chemical vapor deposition by simultaneously evaporating of solid sources like sulfur and molybdenum trioxide powders. The structural and optical properties of the obtained nanoflakes are assessed by using X-ray diffraction pattern, scanning electron microscopy, UV–visible absorption, photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy. It is shown that, Ar gas flow rate is strongly affects on the final products as few-layer MoS2 structures. Moreover, the abundance of MoS2 in comparison to MoO2 and MoO3 structures, in the obtained nanoflakes, is influenced by the Ar flow rate.