Positive E a indicates endothermic adsorption. The LDA-calculated results are also listed for reference. Next, Bader analysis is performed to predict the charge transfer value. It is found that most molecules studied except NH3 are charge acceptors Selleckchem MAPK inhibitor with 0.004 ∼ 0.1e obtained from monolayer MoS2, whereas NH3 behaves as a charge donor, providing 0.069e to the monolayer. The charge transfer values for O2 and H2O are in good agreement with recently reported

values (approximately 0.04e for O2 and 0.01e for H2O) by Tongay et al. [33]. Note that our results are somewhat similar to the previous reports on the adsorption of gas molecules on graphene [7] and carbon nanotube [34], where the gas molecules also behave as either charge acceptors or donors. We need to point out that although different methods besides Bader Selleckchem Vorinostat analysis may give rise to different values in determining the electronic charge transfer, the direction and order of magnitude should be the same. The mechanism of the MoS2-FET gas sensor for NO [27] can

then be understood. Before NO adsorption, the mechanically selleck products cleaved MoS2 channel is an n-type semiconductor in the experiment, implying that some electrons have already existed in the conduction band. After NO adsorption, electron charge is transferred to the NO molecule, inducing a p-doping effect on the MoS2 channel. As a result, the channel resistance increases and current decreases. The similar behavior, which has been previously reported for MoS2-FET devices in an O2 environment [35, 36], is probably due to the adsorption of O2 on the MoS2 surface, which traps electrons and sequentially Gefitinib molecular weight reduces the current of the MoS2-FET. To further gain insight into the molecule-monolayer interaction, we calculate the adsorption energy curves for all the studied gas molecules, wherein the height between the center of mass of the molecule and the top S-layer of the MoS2 sheet is varied between 1.5 and 5.0 Å. The corresponding results are given in Figure 2. It is shown that the curve for NO2 gives the largest adsorption energy at the

minimum, which is three times higher than that of the H2 curve. At equilibrium, NH3 has a minimum height of 2.46 Å with respect to monolayer MoS2, whereas CO has a maximum molecule-monolayer height of 2.95 Å. All the curves nearly reach the asymptotic value at 5.0 Å. Due to the small adsorption energy and large separation height, the interaction between the gas molecules and the MoS2 surface can thus be characterized as physisorption. Figure 2 Adsorption energy versus height. Adsorption energy versus height between the center of mass of the molecule and the top S-layer of monolayer MoS2 for all the studied molecular adsorbates. Figure 3 presents the charge density difference images for these molecule-monolayer systems, calculated by the formula , where , , and ρ molecule are the charge density of the molecule-adsorbed MoS2, pristine MoS2, and isolated molecule, respectively.