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Low‐Temperature Solution Synthesis of Few‐Layer 1T ′‐MoTe 2 Nanostructures Exhibiting Lattice Compression
Author(s) -
Sun Yifan,
Wang Yuanxi,
Sun Du,
Carvalho Bruno R.,
Read Carlos G.,
Lee Chiahui,
Lin Zhong,
Fujisawa Kazunori,
Robinson Joshua A.,
Crespi Vincent H.,
Terrones Mauricio,
Schaak Raymond E.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201510029
Subject(s) - raman spectroscopy , nanostructure , materials science , grain boundary , metastability , condensed matter physics , lattice (music) , nanotechnology , crystallography , chemical physics , chemistry , physics , microstructure , composite material , optics , organic chemistry , acoustics
Molybdenum ditelluride, MoTe 2 , is emerging as an important transition‐metal dichalcogenide (TMD) material because of its favorable properties relative to other TMDs. The 1T ′ polymorph of MoTe 2 is particularly interesting because it is semimetallic with bands that overlap near the Fermi level, but semiconducting 2H‐MoTe 2 is more stable and therefore more accessible synthetically. Metastable 1T ′‐MoTe 2 forms directly in solution at 300 °C as uniform colloidal nanostructures that consist of few‐layer nanosheets, which appear to exhibit an approx. 1 % lateral lattice compression relative to the bulk analogue. Density functional theory calculations suggest that small grain sizes and polycrystallinity stabilize the 1T ′ phase in the MoTe 2 nanostructures and suppress its transformation back to the more stable 2H polymorph through grain boundary pinning. Raman spectra of the 1T ′‐MoTe 2 nanostructures exhibit a laser energy dependence, which could be caused by electronic transitions.