Low‐temperature photoluminescence of oxide‐covered single‐layer MoS2

We present a photoluminescence study of single‐layer MoS₂ flakes on SiO₂ surfaces. We demonstrate that the luminescence peak position of flakes prepared from natural MoS₂, which varies by up to 25 meV between individual flakes, can be homogenized by annealing in vacuum. We use HfO₂ and Al₂O₃ layers prepared by atomic layer deposition to cover some of our flakes. In these flakes, we observe a suppression of the low‐energy luminescence peak which appears in asprepared flakes at low temperatures. We infer that this peak originates from excitons bound to surface adsorbates. We also observe different temperature‐induced shifts of the luminescence peaks for the oxide‐covered flakes. This effect stems from the different thermal expansion coefficients of the oxide layers and the MoS₂ flakes. It indicates that the single‐layer MoS₂ flakes strongly adhere to the oxide layers and are therefore strained. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)