Studies of MoS2 structures produced by electron irradiation

In this letter, we report the study of MoS2 crystals after irradiation with a high dose of electrons. A pelletron accelerator was used to irradiate the sample with electrons at an energy of 0.5 MeV. Samples were examined in high resolution electron microscopy. Two main structures were observed: onion layers with fullerene like structure and others with their planes rotated with respect to each other by well‐defined angles. We present a calculation showing that relative rotation of the sulphur layers by 3°, 5°, 8°, and 16° basically have the same average energy as the unrotated structure. Therefore rotations of the layers through those angles will be favored. Instability on the structure produced by irradiation will induce rotations on the structure.