Misorientation-angle-dependent electrical transport across molybdenumdisulfide grain boundaries

Grain boundaries in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides have unique atomic defect structures and band dispersion relations that depend on the inter-domain misorientation angle. Here, we explore misorientation angle-dependent electrical transport at grain boundaries in monolayer MoS2 by correlating the atomic defect structures of measured devices analysed with transmission electron microscopy and first-principles calculations. Transmission electron microscopy indicates that grain boundaries are primarily composed of 5–7 dislocation cores with periodicity and additional complex defects formed at high angles, obeying the classical low-angle theory for angles
Grain boundaries can degrade the performance of electronic devices made from single atomic layers of transition metal dichalcogenides. Here, the authors combine transport measurements and transmission electron microscopy to find a correlation between field-effect mobility and grain misorientation angle.