Designer Shape Anisotropy on Transition-Metal-Dichalcogenide Nanosheets

Abstract

MoS₂ and generally speaking, the wide family of transition-metal dichalcogenides represents a solid nanotechnology platform on which to engineer a wealth of new and outperforming applications involving 2D materials. An even richer flexibility can be gained by extrinsically inducing an in-plane shape anisotropy of the nanosheets. Here, the synthesis of anisotropic MoS₂ nanosheets is proposed as a prototypical example in this respect starting from a highly conformal chemical vapor deposition on prepatterend substrates and aiming at the more general purpose of tailoring anisotropy of 2D nanosheets by design. This is envisioned to be a suitable configuration for strain engineering as far as strain can be spatially redistributed in morphologically different regions. With a similar approach, both the optical and electronic properties of the 2D transition-metal dichalcogenides can be tailored over macroscopic sample areas in a self-organized fashion, thus paving the way for new applications in the field of optical metasurfaces, light harvesting, and catalysis.

A wealth of new and outperforming applications involving 2D materials like MoS₂ can be achieved by inducing an in-plane shape anisotropy via chemical vapor deposition on prepatterned substrates. Tailoring a 2D anisotropy by design may have relevant impact on the local strain engineering as well as on technology applications in the field of optical metasurfaces, light harvesting, and catalysis.

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