Lattice-guided growth of dense arrays of aligned transition metal dichalcogenide nanoribbons with high catalytic reactivity

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel lattice-guided chemical vapor deposition method for growing dense, aligned transition metal dichalcogenide nanoribbons with high catalytic activity, enabling precise control over their dimensions and orientation.

Contribution

The study introduces a versatile, substrate-guided growth technique for self-aligned TMD nanoribbons with sub-10 nm widths, extending to hetero-nanoribbons, advancing nanomaterial synthesis.

Findings

Successful synthesis of dense, aligned MoS2 and WS2 nanoribbons.

Observation of Coulomb blockade confirming 1D electronic properties.

Enhanced catalytic activity at nanoribbon edges.

Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit unique properties and potential applications when reduced to one-dimensional (1D) nanoribbons (NRs), owing to quantum confinement and high edge densities. However, effective growth methods for self-aligned TMD NRs are still lacking. We demonstrate a versatile approach for lattice-guided growth of dense, aligned MoS2 NR arrays via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on anisotropic sapphire substrates, without tailored surface steps. This method enables the synthesis of NRs with widths below 10 nm and longitudinal axis parallel to the zigzag direction, being also extensible to the growth of WS2 NRs and MoS2-WS2 hetero-nanoribbons. Growth is influenced by both substrate and CVD temperature, indicating the role of anisotropic precursor diffusion and substrate interaction. The 1D nature of the NRs was asserted by the observation of Coulomb blockade at low temperature. Pronounced catalytic activity was observed at the edges of the NRs, indicating their promise for efficient catalysis.