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Raman Signatures of Polytypism in Molybdenum Disulfide

Since the stacking order sensitively affects various physical properties of layered materials, accurate determination of the stacking order is important for studying the basic properties of these materials as well as for device applications. Because 2H-molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is most common in nature, most studies so far have focused on 2H-MoS2. However, we found that the 2H, 3R, and mixed stacking sequences exist in few-layer MoS2 exfoliated from natural molybdenite crystals. The crystal structures are confirmed by HR-TEM measurements. The Raman signatures of different polytypes are investigated by using 3 different excitation energies which are non-resonant and resonant with A and C excitons, respectively. The low-frequency breathing and shear modes show distinct differences for each polytype whereas the high-frequency intra-layer modes show little difference. For resonant excitations at 1.96 and 2.81 eV, distinct features are observed which enable determination of the stacking order.