Self-induced uniaxial strain in MoS2 monolayers with local van der Waals-stacked interlayer interactions

Strain engineering is an effective method to tune the properties of electrons and phonons in semiconductor materials, including two-dimensional (2D) layered materials (e.g., MoS2 or graphene). External artificial stress (ExAS) or heterostructure stacking is generally required to induce strains for modulating semiconductor bandgaps and optoelectronic functions. For layered materials, the van der Waals-stacked interlayer interaction (vdW-SI) has been considered to dominate the interlayer stacking and intralayer bonding. Here, we demonstrate self-induced uniaxial strain in the MoS2 monolayer without the assistance of ExAS or heterostructure stacking processes. The uniaxial strain occurring in local monolayer regions is manifested by the Raman split of the in-plane vibration modes E2g(1) and is essentially caused by local vdW-SI within the single layer MoS2 due to a unique symmetric bilayer stacking. The local stacked configuration and the self-induced uniaxial strain may provide improved understanding of the fundamental interlayer interactions and alternative routes for strain engineering of layered structures.