Thermal sulfurization of ultra-thin Mo-based films represents a promising approach for large-area growth of MoS 2. In this paper, we demonstrated that the crystalline quality (domains size and defects density), strain, doping, and light emission properties of monolayer (1L) MoS 2 obtained from sputter deposited MoO x films on a c-sapphire substrate can be tailored by the sulfurization temperature (T s) in the range from 700 to 800 C. Starting from a continuous film with a nanocrystalline domains structure at T s= 700 C, a distribution of 1L MoS 2 triangular domains with 2.1±0.6 and 2.6±1.6 μm average sizes was obtained by increasing T s to 750 and 800 C, respectively. The increase in T s was accompanied by a strong (25×) enhancement of the photoluminescence (PL) intensity. Furthermore, the average doping of MoS 2, evaluated from Raman analyses, evolved from a strong p-type doping (∼ 1× 10 13 cm− 2) after …