Preparing clean, high-quality monolayer tungsten disulfide (WS₂) is a crucial step toward building precisely controlled hybrid materials. In our new paper in ACS Nano, a collaboration involving several theoretical and experimental groups, we demonstrate its growth on gold by molecular beam epitaxy, using dimethyl disulfide as an alternative sulfur source to hydrogen sulfide.
Combining scanning tunneling microscopy with electron diffraction and photoemission spectroscopy, we characterize the structural and electronic quality of the resulting WS₂ layer. Its clean, ordered surface enables pentacene molecules to self-assemble into a highly ordered monolayer. The resulting hybrid interface exhibits a type-II energy-level alignment, providing a platform for future studies of charge transfer and ultrafast interfacial processes.

Read the paper in ACS Nano.