In situ strain photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopy have been employed to exploit the evolutions of the electronic band structure and lattice vibrational responses of chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown monolayer tungsten disulphide (WS₂) under uniaxial tensile strain. Observable broadening and appearance of an extra small feature at the longer-wavelength side shoulder of the PL peak occur under 2.5% strain, which could indicate the direct-indirect bandgap transition and is further confirmed by our density-functional-theory calculations. As the strain increases further, the spectral weight of the indirect transition gradually increases. Over the entire strain range, with the increase of the strain, the light emissions corresponding to each optical transition, such as the direct bandgap transition (K-K) and indirect bandgap transition (Γ-K, ≥2.5%), exhibit a monotonous linear redshift. In addition, the binding energy of the indirect transition is found to be larger than that of the direct transition, and the slight lowering of the trion dissociation energy with increasing strain is observed. The strain was used to modulate not only the electronic band structure but also the lattice vibrations. The softening and splitting of the in-plane E’ mode is observed under uniaxial tensile strain, and polarization-dependent Raman spectroscopy confirms the observed zigzag-oriented edge of WS₂ grown by CVD in previous studies. These findings enrich our understanding of the strained states of monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials and lay a foundation for developing applications exploiting their strain-dependent optical properties, including the strain detection and light-emission modulation of such emerging two-dimensional TMDs.

2D semiconductor tungsten disulfide (WS₂) attracts significant interest in both fundamental physics and many promising applications such as light emitters, photodetectors/sensors, valleytronics, and flexible nanoelectronics, due to its fascinating optical, electronic, and mechanical properties. Herein, basic exciton properties of monolayer WS₂ are reviewed including neutral excitons, charged excitons, bounded excitons, biexcitons, and the effects of electrostatic gating, chemical doping, strain, magnetic field, circular polarized light, and substrate on these excitonic structures. Besides basic excitonic emission, single‐photon emission, exciton–polaritons, and stimulated emission in monolayer WS₂ are also discussed. The understanding of these optical phenomena is critical for the development of potential optical applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. Finally, a summary and future prospective of the challengers and developments regarding 2D semiconductor WS₂ is presented.

We report the thermal conductivities of monolayer (1L) and bilayer (2L) WS₂ grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which are determined by use of temperature and excitation dependences of E _2g ¹ and A_1g Raman modes. The first-order temperature coefficients of E _2g ¹ and A_1g modes in both supported and suspended WS₂ layers were extracted. The frequency shift of the A_1g mode with temperature is larger than that of the E _2g ¹ mode for 1L-WS₂, which is attributed to stronger electron-phonon coupling for the A_1g mode than that for the E _2g ¹ mode. Moreover, by use of the shift of the phonon mode induced by laser heating, the thermal conductivities at room temperature were estimated to be 32 and 53 W/(m·K) for 1L- and 2L-WS₂, respectively. Our results provide fundamental information about the thermal properties of WS₂ layers, which is crucial for developing applications of atomically-thin WS₂ devices.