Laser-Induced Oxidation and Defect Formation of Thin-Film Materials for High-Throughput Materials Discovery

The discovery of nanomaterials is an exceptionally slow process requiring many years of development in order to translate fundamental research to real capabilities. Consequently, a rapid materials discovery approach is needed to understand and tailor the properties of materials for specific applications. In this work, we present a high-throughput laser-processing methodology for producing and characterizing hundreds of modified regions on a single precursor sample. In particular, laser-induced oxidation and defect formation in transition metal dichalocogenides is presented, where the thermodynamics of the process is controlled by scanning a continuous-wave laser across the sample surface at varying scans speeds and intensities. Coupled with in-situ Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy, this allows for the generation of laser-processing diagrams indicating the conditions necessary to produce varying stoichiometries, crystal structures, and defect densities. With additional ex-situ optical and electrical characterization, this method can be used to identify novel materials with properties of interest for a variety of applications including sensing, photocatalysis, and neuromorphic computing.