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Paramagnetic defects in hydrothermally grown few-layered MoS2 nanocrystals

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Abstract

In the recent past, two-dimensional (2D) nanocrystalline (NC) transition metal dichalcogenides such as MoS2 received a great deal of attention due to their extraordinary physical properties. There has been a great interest to study the defects present in MoS2 NCs, which alter the material’s catalytic, electrical, and magnetic properties. This work reports paramagnetic point defects present in the hydrothermally grown 2H-MoS2 NCs. X-band electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy has been used to identify the defects which contain unpaired electron spins in the as-prepared and Ar-annealed MoS2 NCs. At least seven ESR signals were detected originating from four inequivalent paramagnetic defect sites such as adsorbed oxygen species, sulfur vacancies, thio-, and oxo-Mo5+. Upon Ar-annealing, most of these defects did not survive, instead conduction ESR signal was observed. This work signifies the importance of employing ESR spectroscopy and broadens the knowledge in identifying the atomic defects in MoS2 NCs.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

L.M.M and S.R.S acknowledge support from a UTEP start-up grant. L.M.M acknowledges the Wiemer Family for awarding Student Endowment for Excellence. S.R.S acknowledges the NSF-PREM program (DMR-1205302). The authors sincerely thank Prof. Russell Chianelli for shared synthesis facilities and for useful discussion. KMR acknowledges the NSF-MRI grant DMR-0722699. C.K. acknowledges the Boise State Center for Materials Characterization (BSCMC) and NSF MRI Grant DMR-0521315. The authors thank S.R.J. Hennadige and E. Castro for their help in performing ESR and Raman spectroscopy measurements, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, 79968, USA

    Luis M. Martinez & Srinivasa Rao Singamaneni

  2. Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, 83725, USA

    Chinnathambi Karthik & Madhu Kongara

  3. Department of Physics, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, 83725, USA

    Madhu Kongara

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  1. Luis M. Martinez
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Correspondence to Srinivasa Rao Singamaneni.

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Martinez, L.M., Karthik, C., Kongara, M. et al. Paramagnetic defects in hydrothermally grown few-layered MoS2 nanocrystals. Journal of Materials Research 33, 1565–1572 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.149

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