Optical Properties of Liquid Phase Exfoliated Transition Metal Dichalcogenide MoS2

Two-Dimensional (2D) monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) enable distinct quantum optical properties compared to bulk analogs. The pervasive appeal of 2D TMDs is underpinned by the nascent ability to scalably isolate mono to few layer TMDs from bulk constituents via exfoliation strategies. To-date, the optical characterization of films from exfoliated TMDs has been scarce, especially in relation to the quality of the optical response (i.e., refractive index, n, and extinction coefficient, k) and associated physical material tolerances. In this work, we report the optical properties of representative liquid phase exfoliated MoS2 films and identify important considerations toward maximizing associated low-dimensional optical performance. Understanding processing impact on material quality post-exfoliation and on the resulting optical performance of such films is expected to further enable application-ready quantum nanophotonic technologies.