Ab-initio study of dynamical properties of two dimensional MoS2 under strain

Abstract

In this paper, we report the biaxial strain induced modifications in the phonon dispersion curves of monolayer MoS2 using first principles calculations in the framework of density functional perturbation theory. We have used the ultrasoft psedopotentials and the exchange correlation energies have been approximated by the local density approximation. There are significant changes in the phonon dispersion curves under strain. A systematic decrease in the optical phonon modes is observed with strain percentage. The longitudinal and transverse acoustic phonon modes of monolayer MoS2 show linear dependency for both without and with strain cases. However, the out of plane acoustic mode (ZA) which behaves quadratically with wave vector k- turns linear under strain. We have also linked ripple in single layer (SL) MoS2 by ZA mode with strain using shell elasticity theory. The strain induced softening of linear behaviour of ZA mode with strain indicates the absence of rippling under strain. At a very high strain there is a possibility of structural phase transition as the ZA mode at zone centre turns imaginary above 15% strain. Our results indicate a close relationship between the morphology and properties enabling the device tailoring and bandgap engineering in SL-MoS2 by manipulating the strain.