Substrate-Induced Variances in Morphological and Structural Properties of MoS(2) Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition on Epitaxial Graphene and SiO(2)

[Image: see text] In this work, we report the impact of substrate type on the morphological and structural properties of molybdenum disulfide (MoS(2)) grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). MoS(2) synthesized on a three-dimensional (3D) substrate, that is, SiO(2), in response to the change of the thermodynamic conditions yielded different grain morphologies, including triangles, truncated triangles, and circles. Simultaneously, MoS(2) on graphene is highly immune to the modifications of the growth conditions, forming triangular crystals only. We explain the differences between MoS(2) on SiO(2) and graphene by the different surface diffusion mechanisms, namely, hopping and gas-molecule-collision-like mechanisms, respectively. As a result, we observe the formation of thermodynamically favorable nuclei shapes on graphene, while on SiO(2), a full spectrum of domain shapes can be achieved. Additionally, graphene withstands the growth process well, with only slight changes in strain and doping. Furthermore, by the application of graphene as a growth substrate, we realize van der Waals epitaxy and achieve strain-free growth, as suggested by the photoluminescence (PL) studies. We indicate that PL, contrary to Raman spectroscopy, enables us to arbitrarily determine the strain levels in MoS(2).