Out-of-Plane Strain Induced in a Moiré Superstructure of Monolayer MoS and MoSe on Au(111).

Making contact of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) with a metal surface is essential for fabricating and designing electronic devices and catalytic systems. It also generates strain in the TMDCs that plays significant role in both electronic and phonon structures. Therefore, detailed understanding of mechanism of the strain generation is important to fully comprehend the modulation effect for the electronic and phonon properties. Here, MoS and MoSe monolayers are grown on Au surface by chemical vapor deposition and it is demonstrated that the contact with a crystalline Au(111) surface gives rise to only out-of-plane strain in both MoS and MoSe layers, whereas no strain generation is observed on polycrystalline Au or SiO /Si surfaces. Scanning tunneling microscopy analysis provides information regarding consequent specific adsorption sites between lower S (Se) atoms in the SMoS (SeMoSe) structure and Au atoms via unique moiré superstructure formation for MoS and MoSe layers on Au(111). This observation indicates that the specific adsorption sites give rise to out-of-plane strain in the TMDC layers. Furthermore, it also leads to effective modulation of the electronic structure of the MoS or MoSe layer.