Tailoring physical properties of WS₂ nanosheets by defects control

The controllable growth of high-quality transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is crucial for their device applications, which rely on the atomic and quantitative understanding of the growth mechanism of TMDs. In this work, we propose a comprehensive picture of the growth of WS₂ nanosheets via Monte Carlo simulation, and an extension of diffusion-limited growth under transition state theory is developed to describe heteroepitaxy growth of WS₂. Theoretical results are in good agreement with the results of chemical vapor deposition that growth temperature dominates growth processes leading to samples with various densities of vacancy defects. The vacancy defects modify the photoluminescence and ferromagnetic behavior. Our work provides a pathway toward realizing controllable physical properties in 2D materials.