Nanomolding of Metastable Mo$_{4}$P$_{3}$

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that thermomechanical nanomolding can synthesize metastable Mo4P3 nanowires from MoP, revealing new phases and expanding the synthesis space for nanoscale quantum materials.

Contribution

It introduces nanomolding as a method to create metastable nanowires, specifically Mo4P3, inaccessible by traditional synthesis techniques.

Findings

Successfully synthesized Mo4P3 nanowires via nanomolding.

Nanomolding enables access to metastable phases at room temperature.

Highlights incomplete understanding of interfacial solid diffusion in nanomolding.

Abstract

Reduced dimensionality leads to emergent phenomena in quantum materials and there is a need for accelerated materials discovery of nanoscale quantum materials in reduced dimensions. Thermomechanical nanomolding is a rapid synthesis method that produces high quality single-crystalline quantum nanowires with controlled dimensions over wafer-scale sizes. Herein, we apply nanomolding to fabricate nanowires from bulk feedstock of MoP, a triple-point topological metal with extremely high conductivity that is promising for low-resistance interconnects. Surprisingly, we obtained single-crystalline Mo$_{4}$P$_{3}$ nanowires, a metastable phase at room temperature in atmospheric pressure. We thus demonstrate nanomolding can create metastable phases inaccessible by other nanomaterial syntheses and can explore a previously inaccessible synthesis space at high temperatures and pressures. Furthermore, our results suggest that the current understanding of interfacial solid diffusion for nanomolding is incomplete, providing opportunities to explore solid-state diffusion at high-pressure and high-temperature regimes in confined dimensions.