Two-dimensional layered chalcogenide WS2, similar to graphene, is considered to be very interesting for materials scientists. However, to make it a useful material platform, it is necessary to develop sophisticated synthesis methods to control its morphology. In this paper, we present a simple approach to prepare various morphologies of WS2 nanostructures by direct thermal evaporation of WO3 and S powders onto Si substrates sputtered with W film without using any nanostructured W-contained precursors and highly toxic sulfide gases. This method can produce bulk quantities of pure hexagonal, horizontally grown WS2 nanoplates, vertically grown nanoplates, and nanoplate-formed flowers simply by tuning the distance between the substrate and source powders. The synthesis mechanism and morphology evolution model were proposed. Moreover, when employed as a thin-film anode material, the Li-ion battery with as-prepared, vertically grown WS2 nanoplates presented a rechargeable performance between 3 and 0.01 V with a discharge capacity of about 773 mAh/cm(3) after recycling three times, much better than its already-reported counterparts with randomly distributed WS2 nanosheet electrodes, but the battery with horizontally grown WS2 nanoplates could not show any charge-discharge cycling property, which could be attributed to the different structures of WS2 anodes for Li(+) ion intercalation or deintercalation.
Keywords: WS2 nanoplates; crystal growth; electrochemical property; microstructure; thermal evaporation.