Berkeley Lab Scientists Make 'Surprising' Molybdenum Disulfide Discoveries

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) reported that a team of its scientists recently used a Campanile probe to study the effects of illumination on two-dimensional semiconductors at the molecular level. In doing so, they made some “surprising discoveries” about molybdenum disulfide.
James Schuck, a staff scientist with Berkeley Lab’s materials sciences division, commented:

The Campanile probe’s remarkable resolution enabled us to identify significant nanoscale optoelectronic heterogeneity in the interior regions of monolayer crystals of molybdenum disulfide, and an unexpected, approximately 300 nanometer wide, energetically disordered edge region.
This disordered edge region, which has never been seen before, could be extremely important for any devices in which one wants to make electrical contacts. It might also prove critical to photocatalytic and nonlinear optical conversion applications.

Click here to read the full Berkeley Lab report.