Erosion Mechanism of MoS2-Based Films Exposed to Atomic Oxygen Environments.

The erosion mechanism of magnetron sputtered MoS2 films exposed to the atomic oxygen environment was studied and compared with the Ti-doped MoS2 and MoS2/Ti multilayer films. The compositional and structural changes were investigated as a function of incident fluence by Rutherford back scattering (RBS) and focused ion beam combining with scanning electron microscopy (FIB&SEM). The RBS results indicate that the sulfur atoms are eroded by the incident atomic oxygen atoms and the removed sulfur amount increases but the erosion rate decreases with increasing of incident fluence. For pure MoS2 films the erosion process turns to saturate at the end of investigated fluence of 4.8 × 1021 O cm–2, and for Ti-doped and MoS2/Ti multilayer films the saturation of sulfur erosion is much earlier around incident fluence of 5.2 × 1019 and 2.6 × 1019 O cm–2, respectively. FIB cross-section results reveal that pores structures present in the as-deposited MoS2 films provide a reaction highway, which allows the incident atomi...