Molecular potentials for 2D molybdenum disulphide: transferability and performance

An ability of different molecular potentials to reproduce the properties of 2D molybdenum disulphide polymorphs is examined. Structural and mechanical properties, as well as phonon dispersion of the 2H, 1T and 1T' single-layer MoS2 (SL MoS2) phases, were obtained using density functional theory (DFT) and molecular statics calculations (MS) with Stillinger-Weber, REBO, SNAP, and ReaxFF potentials. Quantitative systematic comparison and discussion of the results obtained are reported.