Substrate-dependent pore formation in molybdenum disulfide monolayers under ion irradiation

Yossarian Liebsch; Umair Javed; Lucia Skopinski; Leon Daniel; Franziska Appel; Radia Rahali; Clara Grygiel; Henning Lebius; Carolin Frank; Lars Breuer; Leon Kirsch; Frieder Koch; Jani Kotakoski; Marika Schleberger

doi:10.3762/bjnano.17.54

Substrate-dependent pore formation in molybdenum disulfide monolayers under ion irradiation

Yossarian Liebsch (Corresponding author)
, Umair Javed
, Lucia Skopinski
, Leon Daniel
, Franziska Appel
, Radia Rahali
, Clara Grygiel
, Henning Lebius
, Carolin Frank
, Lars Breuer
, Leon Kirsch
, Frieder Koch
, Jani Kotakoski
, Marika Schleberger

Physics of Nanostructured Materials

Publications: Contribution to journal › Article › Peer Reviewed

Abstract

Ion irradiation is a versatile tool for nanostructuring surfaces, yet the roles of energy deposition and dissipation at the surface and in ultrathin materials remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate nanopore formation in monolayer MoS ₂ on different substrates under irradiation of highly charged ions (HCIs) and swift heavy ions (SHIs) – two types of ions that, despite having vastly different kinetic energies, both interact primarily with the electronic system of the target. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy, we quantify pore radii and pore formation efficiencies for suspended MoS ₂, MoS ₂ on SiO ₂, bilayer MoS ₂, and MoS ₂ on gold. Both pore size and pore formation efficiency exhibit a pronounced dependence on the type of substrate. Pores are largest and most frequent in MoS ₂ on SiO ₂, while the gold substrate massively quenches pore formation. The observed pore dimensions under both HCI and SHI irradiation conclusively demonstrate the central role of substrate and interface-dependent electronic dissipation pathways regarding damage under these types of ion irradiation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	769-780
Number of pages	12
Journal	Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology
Volume	17
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.17.54
Publication status	Published - 12 Jun 2026

Funding

Results presented here are partly based on experiments per formed at the beam line M3 at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt (Germany) in the context of FAIR Phase-0. Part of the experiments was done at IRRSUD beamline of GANIL facility. The authors would like to thank the committees of EMIR&A network and IPAC-GANIL for the allocated beamtimes and they also thank the CIMAP, CIRIL, and GANIL staff for their assistance during the experiments. UJ and JK acknowledge funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) within the Cluster of Excellence MECS (DOI:10.55776/COE5). Y.L, M.S, L.S, L.D, C.F and L.B thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) for the support of this work under project numbers 272132938, 429784087 and 501495566, and through IRTG 2803 “2D Mature” (project number 461605777; P05).

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103042 Electron microscopy
210004 Nanomaterials

Keywords

MoS
nanopores
defects
SiO
scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM)

Access to Document

10.3762/bjnano.17.54Licence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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title = "Substrate-dependent pore formation in molybdenum disulfide monolayers under ion irradiation",

abstract = "Ion irradiation is a versatile tool for nanostructuring surfaces, yet the roles of energy deposition and dissipation at the surface and in ultrathin materials remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate nanopore formation in monolayer MoS 2 on different substrates under irradiation of highly charged ions (HCIs) and swift heavy ions (SHIs) {\textendash} two types of ions that, despite having vastly different kinetic energies, both interact primarily with the electronic system of the target. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy, we quantify pore radii and pore formation efficiencies for suspended MoS 2, MoS 2 on SiO 2, bilayer MoS 2, and MoS 2 on gold. Both pore size and pore formation efficiency exhibit a pronounced dependence on the type of substrate. Pores are largest and most frequent in MoS 2 on SiO 2, while the gold substrate massively quenches pore formation. The observed pore dimensions under both HCI and SHI irradiation conclusively demonstrate the central role of substrate and interface-dependent electronic dissipation pathways regarding damage under these types of ion irradiation.",

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author = "Yossarian Liebsch and Umair Javed and Lucia Skopinski and Leon Daniel and Franziska Appel and Radia Rahali and Clara Grygiel and Henning Lebius and Carolin Frank and Lars Breuer and Leon Kirsch and Frieder Koch and Jani Kotakoski and Marika Schleberger",

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AU - Liebsch, Yossarian

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AU - Skopinski, Lucia

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AU - Appel, Franziska

AU - Rahali, Radia

AU - Grygiel, Clara

AU - Lebius, Henning

AU - Frank, Carolin

AU - Breuer, Lars

AU - Kirsch, Leon

AU - Koch, Frieder

AU - Kotakoski, Jani

AU - Schleberger, Marika

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2026 Liebsch et al.; licensee Beilstein-Institut. License and terms: see end of document. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Beilstein-Institut Open Access License Agreement (https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/terms), which is identical to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). The reuse of material under this license requires that the author(s), source and license are credited. Third-party material in this article could be subject to other licenses (typically indicated in the credit line), and in this case, users are required to obtain permission from the license holder to reuse the material.

PY - 2026/6/12

Y1 - 2026/6/12

N2 - Ion irradiation is a versatile tool for nanostructuring surfaces, yet the roles of energy deposition and dissipation at the surface and in ultrathin materials remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate nanopore formation in monolayer MoS 2 on different substrates under irradiation of highly charged ions (HCIs) and swift heavy ions (SHIs) – two types of ions that, despite having vastly different kinetic energies, both interact primarily with the electronic system of the target. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy, we quantify pore radii and pore formation efficiencies for suspended MoS 2, MoS 2 on SiO 2, bilayer MoS 2, and MoS 2 on gold. Both pore size and pore formation efficiency exhibit a pronounced dependence on the type of substrate. Pores are largest and most frequent in MoS 2 on SiO 2, while the gold substrate massively quenches pore formation. The observed pore dimensions under both HCI and SHI irradiation conclusively demonstrate the central role of substrate and interface-dependent electronic dissipation pathways regarding damage under these types of ion irradiation.

AB - Ion irradiation is a versatile tool for nanostructuring surfaces, yet the roles of energy deposition and dissipation at the surface and in ultrathin materials remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate nanopore formation in monolayer MoS 2 on different substrates under irradiation of highly charged ions (HCIs) and swift heavy ions (SHIs) – two types of ions that, despite having vastly different kinetic energies, both interact primarily with the electronic system of the target. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy, we quantify pore radii and pore formation efficiencies for suspended MoS 2, MoS 2 on SiO 2, bilayer MoS 2, and MoS 2 on gold. Both pore size and pore formation efficiency exhibit a pronounced dependence on the type of substrate. Pores are largest and most frequent in MoS 2 on SiO 2, while the gold substrate massively quenches pore formation. The observed pore dimensions under both HCI and SHI irradiation conclusively demonstrate the central role of substrate and interface-dependent electronic dissipation pathways regarding damage under these types of ion irradiation.

KW - MoS

KW - nanopores

KW - defects

KW - SiO

KW - scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM)

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SN - 2190-4286

VL - 17

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JO - Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

JF - Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

ER -

Substrate-dependent pore formation in molybdenum disulfide monolayers under ion irradiation

Abstract

Funding

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

Keywords

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