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Direct growth of single-chiral-angle tungsten disulfide nanotubes using gold nanoparticle catalysts

Nature Materials volume 23, pages 347–355 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) nanotubes offer a unique platform to explore the properties of TMD materials at the one-dimensional limit. Despite considerable efforts thus far, the direct growth of TMD nanotubes with controllable chirality remains challenging. Here we demonstrate the direct and facile growth of high-quality WS2 and WSe2 nanotubes on Si substrates using catalytic chemical vapour deposition with Au nanoparticles. The Au nanoparticles provide unique accommodation sites for the nucleation of WS2 or WSe2 shells on their surfaces and seed the subsequent growth of nanotubes. We find that the growth mode of nanotubes is sensitive to the temperature. With careful temperature control, we realize ~79% WS2 nanotubes with single chiral angles, with a preference of 30° (~37%) and 0° (~12%). Moreover, we demonstrate how the geometric, electronic and optical properties of the synthesized WS2 nanotubes can be modulated by the chirality. We anticipate that this approach using Au nanoparticles as catalysts will facilitate the growth of TMD nanotubes with controllable chirality and promote the study of their interesting properties and applications.

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Fig. 1: Direct CVD growth of TMD NTs using Au NPs as catalysts.
Fig. 2: Structural characterizations of WS2 NTs grown at different growth temperatures.
Fig. 3: Growth mechanism and dynamics of WS2 NTs catalysed by Au NPs.
Fig. 4: Correlation of the structural parameters, helicity and faceting of the WS2 NTs.
Fig. 5: Optical and electronic characterizations of WS2 multi-walled NTs.

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Data availability

The data generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Q.A. or S.Y. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

Q.A. thanks the National Science Foundation of China (5110200554) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (G2019KY05112, G2020KY05304) for financial support. S.Y. thanks the National Science Foundation of China for financial support (11974263, 12174291) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of Wuhan Science and Technology Bureau (no. 2022013301015171). Q.A. thanks the Analytical & Testing Center of Northwestern Polytechnical University for SEM, TEM and STEM measurements and for help with the FET device fabrication and optical data collection. Q.A. thanks G. Sha and M. Feng from Nanjing University of Science and Technology for assistance in performing atom probe tomography analysis of the nanotubes.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Light Field Manipulation and Information Acquisition, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Optical Information Technology and School of Physical Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China

    Qinwei An, Siqi Hu, Xuetao Gan & Jianlin Zhao

  2. Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of Ministry of Education and School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Wenqi Xiong, Pengfei Lv & Shengjun Yuan

  3. Wuhan Institute of Quantum Technology, Wuhan, China

    Wenqi Xiong & Shengjun Yuan

  4. College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

    Feng Hu

  5. School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Yikang Yu

  6. Institute of Physics, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou, China

    Xiaobo He

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Contributions

Q.A. conceived the original idea for the project. Q.A. developed the catalytic CVD method to prepare WS2 and WSe2 NTs and analysed the growth mechanisms. Q.A. performed the SEM, TEM and STEM characterizations and analysed all the experimental data. Q.A. carried out the Raman and PL characterizations and performed the FET device fabrications. W.X., P.L. and S.Y. performed first-principles calculations and provided theoretical support. Q.A. and S.H. carried out the electrical characterizations. Q.A. and S.Y. wrote the paper. F.H. and Y.Y. discussed the results and provided suggestions during the process of draughting. Q.A., S.Y., Y.Y. and F.H. revised the manuscript. X.H. made some suggestions during the FET device fabrication. All authors commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qinwei An or Shengjun Yuan.

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Nature Materials thanks Jeremy Sloan, Zheng Liu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–62, Tables 1–5 and Discussion.

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An, Q., Xiong, W., Hu, F. et al. Direct growth of single-chiral-angle tungsten disulfide nanotubes using gold nanoparticle catalysts. Nat. Mater. 23, 347–355 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01590-5

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