Foams-To-Films: A Facile Approach Towards Space-Confined CVD Growth of MoS₂

2D materials have rapidly become the building blocks for the next generation of semiconducting materials and devices, with chemical vapor deposition (CVD) emerging as a prefered method for their synthesis. However, the predictable and reproducible growth of high quality, large 2D monolayers remains challenging. An important facet is controlling the local environment at the surface of the substrate - here, space-confinement techniques have emerged as promising candidates. We demonstrate that space-confined CVD growth using microstructured MoO_x grown on Ni foam is an appealing approach for rapid growth of high quality MoS₂ monolayers; a very important subset of 2D materials. This method eschews the use of powders which can be more difficult to control. By incorporation of a porous barrier in the Ni foam support, the rate of delivery of both the Mo and S source to the substrate is dampened, leading to coverage of large, high quality, mono-to-few layer triangular domains as confirmed by Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies together with atomic force microscopy (AFM) height measurements.