Effects of the Intercalant and the Temperature in Hybrid-MoS₂ Nanodots Fabrication and Their Photoluminescence Enhancement

In this study, we have proposed a simple method to produce temperature-dependent variablesize of MoS₂ nanodots (NDTs) by using MoS₂ powder as a pre-cursor and KNa-tartrate as the intercalant. Due to defects in MoS₂, the optical properties are strongly modified and show blue luminescence under UV irradiation of MoS₂ NDTs. The temperature variable is used to gradually introduce defects in 2D materials to obtain nanodots with different particle sizes. When the synthesis temperature is increased from 120 °C to 200 °C, the particle size is reduced from ~ 120 nm to ~ 2.5 nm. Next, an enhancement of photoluminescent magnitude and a red shift were observed in photoluminescence spectra from MoS₂ NDTs solutions. These results offer a route toward tailoring the optical properties of 2D nanomaterials by controlling the size/temperature/synthesis method.