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High-yield synthesis and liquid-exfoliation of two-dimensional belt-like hafnium disulphide

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Abstract

Producing environmentally stable monolayers and few-layers of hafnium disulphide (HfS2) with a high yield to reveal its unlocked electronic and optoelectronic applications is still a challenge. HfS2 is a layered two-dimensional material of group-IV transition metal dichalcogenides. For the first time, we demonstrate a simple and cost-effective method to grow layered belt-like nanocrystals of HfS2 with a notably large interlayer spacing followed by their chemical exfoliation. Various microscopic and spectroscopic techniques confirm that these as-grown crystals exfoliate into single or multiple layers in a few minutes using solvent assisted ultrasonification method in N-cyclohexyl-2-pyrrolidone. The exfoliated nanosheets of HfS2 exhibit an indirect bandgap of 1.3 eV with high stability against surface degradation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these nanosheets hold potential for electronic applications by fabricating a field-effect transistor based on few-layered HfS2, exhibiting a field-effect mobility of 0.95 cm2/(V·s) with a high on/off current modulation ratio of 10,000 in ambient conditions. The method is scalable and has a potential significance for both academic and industrial purposes.

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Acknowledgements

Work of S. Y. and J. J. S. was supported by the LOEWE project STT by the state of Hesse at Technische Universitat Darmstadt. Exfoliation, its characterization and fabrication of devices were sponsored by UGCSRF, UGC-DAE CSR-IC/CRS-77 Indore, DST and CSIR-TAPSUN NWP-55 project.

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Author notes

  1. Sandeep Yadav and Jörg J. Schneider contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Physical Laboratory, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr. K. S. Krishnan Road, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Harneet Kaur, Avanish K. Srivastava, Nidhi Singh & Ritu Srivastava

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, NPL, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Harneet Kaur

  3. Technische Universität Darmstadt, Eduard-Zintl-Institut für Anorganische und Physikalische Chemie L2 I 05 117, Alarich-Weiss-Str 12, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany

    Sandeep Yadav & Jörg J. Schneider

  4. Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110007, India

    Shyama Rath

  5. Amity Institute of Nanotechnology, Amity University UP, Sector 125, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, 201313, India

    Om P. Sinha

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  1. Harneet Kaur
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Kaur, H., Yadav, S., Srivastava, A.K. et al. High-yield synthesis and liquid-exfoliation of two-dimensional belt-like hafnium disulphide. Nano Res. 11, 343–353 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1636-x

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