TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaporative thinning
T2 - A facile synthesis method for high quality ultrathin layers of 2D crystals
AU - Huang, Yi Kai
AU - Cain, Jeffrey D.
AU - Peng, Lintao
AU - Hao, Shiqiang
AU - Chasapis, Thomas
AU - Kanatzidis, Mercouri G.
AU - Wolverton, Christopher
AU - Grayson, Matthew
AU - Dravid, Vinayak P.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2014/10/28
Y1 - 2014/10/28
N2 - The palette of two-dimensional materials has expanded beyond graphene in recent years to include the chalcogenides among other systems. However, there is a considerable paucity of methods for controlled synthesis of mono- and/or few-layer two-dimensional materials with desirable quality, reproducibility, and generality. Here we show a facile top-down synthesis approach for ultrathin layers of 2D materials down to monolayer. Our method is based on controlled evaporative thinning of initially large sheets, as deposited by vapor mass-transport. Rather than optimizing conditions for monolayer deposition, our approach makes use of selective evaporation of thick sheets to control the eventual thickness, down to a monolayer, a process which appears to be self-stopping. As a result, 2D sheets with high yield, high reproducibility, and excellent quality can be generated with large (>10 μm) and thin (∼1-2 nm) dimensions. Evaporative thinning promises to greatly reduce the difficulty involved in isolating large, mono- and few-layers of 2D materials for subsequent studies.
AB - The palette of two-dimensional materials has expanded beyond graphene in recent years to include the chalcogenides among other systems. However, there is a considerable paucity of methods for controlled synthesis of mono- and/or few-layer two-dimensional materials with desirable quality, reproducibility, and generality. Here we show a facile top-down synthesis approach for ultrathin layers of 2D materials down to monolayer. Our method is based on controlled evaporative thinning of initially large sheets, as deposited by vapor mass-transport. Rather than optimizing conditions for monolayer deposition, our approach makes use of selective evaporation of thick sheets to control the eventual thickness, down to a monolayer, a process which appears to be self-stopping. As a result, 2D sheets with high yield, high reproducibility, and excellent quality can be generated with large (>10 μm) and thin (∼1-2 nm) dimensions. Evaporative thinning promises to greatly reduce the difficulty involved in isolating large, mono- and few-layers of 2D materials for subsequent studies.
KW - 2D synthesis
KW - bismuth selenide
KW - transmission electron microscopy
KW - two-dimensional (2D) materials
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U2 - 10.1021/nn504664p
DO - 10.1021/nn504664p
M3 - Article
C2 - 25233478
AN - SCOPUS:84908440154
SN - 1936-0851
VL - 8
SP - 10851
EP - 10857
JO - ACS nano
JF - ACS nano
IS - 10
ER -