Substrate impact on the thickness dependence of vibrational and optical properties of large area $MoS_2$ produced by gold-assisted exfoliation

The gold-assisted exfoliation is a very effective method to produce large-area ($cm^2$-scale) membranes of molybdenum disulfide ($MoS_2$) for electronics. However, the strong $MoS_2/Au$ interaction, beneficial for the exfoliation process, has a strong impact on the vibrational and light emission properties of $MoS_2$. Here, we report an atomic force microscopy (AFM), micro-Raman ($\mu-R$) and micro-Photoluminescence ($\mu-PL$) investigation of $MoS_2$ with variable thickness exfoliated on Au and subsequently transferred on an $Al_2O_3/Si$ substrate. The $E_{2g}$ - $A_{1g}$ vibrational modes separation $\Delta\mu$ (typically used to estimate $MoS_2$ thickness) exhibits an anomalous large val…