Making Patterned\nSingle Defects in MoS₂ Thermally with the MoS₂/Au Moire Interface

Abstract

Normally, it is hard to regulate thermal defects precisely\nin their\nhost lattice due to the stochastic nature of thermal activation. Here,\nwe demonstrate a thermal annealing way to create patterned single\nsulfur vacancy (V_S) defects in monolayer molybdenum disulfide\n(MoS₂) with about 2 nm separations at subnanometer accuracy.\nTheoretically, we reveal that the S–Au interface coupling reduces\nthe energy barriers in forming V_S defects and that explains\nthe overwhelming formation of interface V_S defects. We\nalso discover a phonon regulation mechanism by the moiré interface\nthat effectively condenses the Γ-point out-of-plane acoustic\nphonons of monolayer MoS₂ to its TOP moiré sites,\nwhich has been proposed to trigger moiré-patterned thermal\nV_S formation. The high-throughput nanoscale patterned defects\npresented here may contribute to building scalable defect-based quantum\nsystems.