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Metastable 1T′-phase group VIB transition metal dichalcogenide crystals

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1113–1120 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Metastable 1T′-phase transition metal dichalcogenides (1T′-TMDs) with semi-metallic natures have attracted increasing interest owing to their uniquely distorted structures and fascinating phase-dependent physicochemical properties. However, the synthesis of high-quality metastable 1T′-TMD crystals, especially for the group VIB TMDs, remains a challenge. Here, we report a general synthetic method for the large-scale preparation of metastable 1T′-phase group VIB TMDs, including WS2, WSe2, MoS2, MoSe2, WS2xSe2(1−x) and MoS2xSe2(1−x). We solve the crystal structures of 1T′-WS2, -WSe2, -MoS2 and -MoSe2 with single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The as-prepared 1T′-WS2 exhibits thickness-dependent intrinsic superconductivity, showing critical transition temperatures of 8.6 K for the thickness of 90.1 nm and 5.7 K for the single layer, which we attribute to the high intrinsic carrier concentration and the semi-metallic nature of 1T′-WS2. This synthesis method will allow a more systematic investigation of the intrinsic properties of metastable TMDs.

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Fig. 1: Crystal structure and characterization of WS2.
Fig. 2: Structural characterization of 1T′-WS2.
Fig. 3: Characterization of 1T′- and 2H-WS2.
Fig. 4: Device configuration and electrical transport properties of devices made of 1T′-WS2 (90.1 nm), 1T′-WSe2 (71.2 nm), 1T′-WS2xSe2(1−x) (x = 0.796) (14.9 nm) and 1T′-WS2xSe2(1−x) (x = 0.472) (50.2 nm).

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Data availability

The X-ray crystallographic coordinates for the structure reported in this study have been deposited at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre under deposition numbers CSD 2062455, 2062456, 2062457 and 2062458. These data can be obtained free of charge from https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/. Other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

H.Z. acknowledges support from ITC via the Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM), the Start-Up Grant (project no. 9380100) and grants (project nos. 9610478 and 1886921) from the City University of Hong Kong and the Science Technology and Innovation Committee of Shenzhen Municipality (grant no. JCYJ20200109143412311). Q.H. acknowledges the funding support from the Start-Up Grant (project no. 9610482) from the City University of Hong Kong. Y.S. and Y.M. acknowledge the funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (under grant no. 11534003) and the Program for JLU Science and Technology Innovative Research Team and Science Challenge Project (no. TZ2016001). K.H. and D.V.M.R. acknowledge funding from the Accelerated Materials Development for Manufacturing Program at A*STAR via the AME Programmatic Fund by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research under grant no. A1898b0043. R.V.R. and V.S. acknowledge support by grants from the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore, under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme. X.R.W. acknowledges supports from Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (grant no. MOE-T2EP50120-006) from Singapore Ministry of Education. We also thank W. Fernando for his generosity in providing us with his PhD thesis for our reference and S. Morris for the helpful discussions. We acknowledge the Facility for Analysis, Characterization, Testing and Simulation, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, for use of their electron microscopy and X-ray facilities.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhuangchai Lai, Qiyuan He, Thu Ha Tran, D. V. Maheswar Repaka.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Zhuangchai Lai, Bo Chen, Chongyi Ling, Wei Zhai, Zhenyu Shi & Hua Zhang

  2. Center for Programmable Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Zhuangchai Lai, Thu Ha Tran, Apoorva Chaturvedi, Gwang-Hyeon Nam, Zhenyu Shi, Dianyi Hu, Vinay Sharma, Zhaoning Hu, Zhicheng Zhang, Yifu Yu, Raju V. Ramanujan & Kedar Hippalgaonkar

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Qiyuan He

  4. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore, Singapore

    D. V. Maheswar Repaka, Shibo Xi & Kedar Hippalgaonkar

  5. MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic and Synthetic Chemistry, School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Dong-Dong Zhou

  6. State Key Laboratory of Superhard Materials, College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Ying Sun & Yanming Ma

  7. International Center for Computational Method & Software, College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Ying Sun & Yanming Ma

  8. School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Yongxin Li & Xiao Renshaw Wang

  9. Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Chaoliang Tan

  10. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Bing Li

  11. Department of Chemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Ye Chen

  12. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Department of Chemistry, School of Science, Tianjin University & Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin, China

    Zhicheng Zhang

  13. Institute of Molecular Plus, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

    Yifu Yu

  14. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Xiao Renshaw Wang

  15. International Center of Future Science, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Yanming Ma

  16. Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM), City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Hua Zhang

  17. Shenzhen Research Institute, City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China

    Hua Zhang

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  1. Zhuangchai Lai
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Contributions

H.Z. proposed the research direction and guided the project. Z.L. designed and performed the synthesis and characterizations of all the materials. Q.H., W.Z. and Z.S. fabricated and tested the devices. T.H.T. and D.H. helped to synthesize the materials and performed some characterizations. D.V.M.R., Q.H., A.C., V.S., R.V.R. and K.H. performed the superconductivity measurements on the devices and analysed the results. Y.S. and Y.M. performed the DFT calculations on the electronic structures and superconducting gap of the materials. S.X. carried out the XAFS measurements and analysed the data. Y.L. performed the SCXRD measurements and D.-D.Z. refined the data to solve the crystal structures. B.C. carried out the HAADF-STEM imaging of the samples. G.-H.N. performed the Raman measurements of materials. C.L. performed the calculations on the Raman active modes and analysed the Raman data. D.-D.Z. and Z.H. helped to perform X-ray diffraction (XRD) tests on materials. B.L. and Y.C. performed the XPS tests. C.T., Z.Z., Y.Y. and X.R.W. helped to analyse the structural information of the materials. Z.L., Q.H., D.V.M.R., K.H. and H.Z. drafted the manuscript. All authors analysed and discussed the experimental results and checked the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Kedar Hippalgaonkar or Hua Zhang.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–64, Tables 1–7 and Notes 1–5.

Supplementary Data 1

The CIF document of the 1T′-WS2 crystal.

Supplementary Data 2

The CIF document of the 1T′-WSe2 crystal.

Supplementary Data 3

The CIF document of the 1T′-MoS2 crystal.

Supplementary Data 4

The CIF document of the 1T′-MoSe2 crystal.

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Lai, Z., He, Q., Tran, T.H. et al. Metastable 1T′-phase group VIB transition metal dichalcogenide crystals. Nat. Mater. 20, 1113–1120 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-00971-y

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