Electronic Properties of Bulk and Single-Layer MoS2 Using ab Initio DFT: Application of Spin-Orbit Coupling (SOC) Parameters

Abstract

Two dimensional (2D) materials are currently gaining a lot of interest due to excellent properties that are different from their bulk structures. Single and few-layered of Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have a bandgap that ranges between 1-2 eV, which is used for FET devices or any optoelectronic devices. Within TMDCs, a ton of consideration is focused on Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) because of its promising band gap-tuning and transition between direct to indirect bandgap properties relies upon its thickness. The density functional theory (DFT) calculations with different functionals and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) parameters were carried out to study the electronic properties of bulk and monolayer MoS2. The addition of SOC brought about a noteworthy change in the profile of the band energy, explicitly the splitting of the valence band maximum (VBM) into two sub-bands. The indirect bandgap in bulk MoS2 ranges from 1.17- 1.71eV and that of the monolayer bandgap was 1.6 – 1.71eV. The calculated parameters were compared to the obtained experimental and theoretical results. The obtained density of states (DOS) can be used in explaining the nature of bandgap in both the bulk and monolayer MoS2. These electronic characteristics are important for applications in material devices and energy-saving applications