Growth of Complex 2D Material-Based Structures with Naturally Formed Contacts

The difficulty of processing two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials into working devices with any scalability is one of the largest impediments to capitalizing on their industrial promise. Here, we describe a versatile, simple, and scalable technique to directly grow self-contacted thin-film materials over a range of TMDs (MoS₂, MoSe₂, WS₂, and WSe₂), where predeposited bulk metallic contacts serve as the nucleation site for the TMD material to grow, forming naturally contacted device structures in a single step. The conditions for growth as well as optical and physical properties are reported. Because the material grows controllably around the lithographically defined patterns, wafer scale circuits and complex device geometries can be envisioned, including lateral heterostructures of different TMD materials.