Robust epitaxy of single-crystal transition-metal dichalcogenides on lanthanum-passivated sapphire

Xilu Zou; Yuanyuan Zhao; Dongxu Fan; Shengqiang Wu; Yushu Wang; Caiqi Zou; Yuliang Bian; Lei Liu; Lang Wu; Zhoushuo Han; Wenjie Sun; Yuefeng Nie; Junfeng Gao; Shitong Zhu; Yi Shi; Taotao Li; Feng Ding; Xinran Wang

doi:10.1126/science.aea0849

Robust epitaxy of single-crystal transition-metal dichalcogenides on lanthanum-passivated sapphire

Science. 2025 Oct 23;390(6771):eaea0849. doi: 10.1126/science.aea0849. Epub 2025 Oct 23.

Authors

Xilu Zou^#^{1

2}, Yuanyuan Zhao^#^{2

3}, Dongxu Fan^#^{2

4

5}, Shengqiang Wu², Yushu Wang², Caiqi Zou^{2

4}, Yuliang Bian^{2

4}, Lei Liu², Lang Wu^{2

4}, Zhoushuo Han⁴, Wenjie Sun⁶, Yuefeng Nie⁶, Junfeng Gao^{2

3}, Shitong Zhu⁷, Yi Shi¹, Taotao Li^{2

4

5}, Feng Ding², Xinran Wang^{1

2

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Electronic Science and Engineering and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
² Suzhou Laboratory, Suzhou, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
⁴ School of Integrated Circuits, Nanjing University, Suzhou, China.
⁵ Interdisciplinary Research Center for Future Intelligent Chips (Chip-X), Nanjing University, Suzhou, China.
⁶ College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁷ Nanjing Extremo Technology Co., Nanjing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 41129627
DOI: 10.1126/science.aea0849

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) semiconductors are promising materials for beyond-silicon electronics, but the growth of single-crystalline TMDCs has been limited to small wafer sizes in laboratory settings. We report the epitaxy of 150-millimeter single-crystalline TMDC wafers on lanthanum-passivated c-plane sapphire. The single atomic layer of lanthanum reduces the surface symmetry and increases the energy difference between antiparallel domains by as much as 200 times, leading to unidirectional domain alignment. We grew single-crystalline molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), molybdenum diselenide (MoSe₂), tungsten disulfide (WS₂), and tungsten diselenide (WSe₂) by means of both chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and metal-organic CVD processes. Wafer-scale spectroscopies and device measurements demonstrate the exceptional quality and uniformity of 150-millimeter TMDCs, with average mobility of 110 and 131 square centimeters per volt per second for MoS₂ and WSe₂, respectively, at room temperature.