Synthesis and Characterization of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Nanoribbons Based on a Controllable O2 Etching

Ruben Canton-Vitoria; Takato Hotta; Mengsong Xue; Shaochun Zhang; Ryo Kitaura

doi:10.1021/jacsau.2c00536

Synthesis and Characterization of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Nanoribbons Based on a Controllable O₂ Etching

JACS Au. 2023 Feb 28;3(3):775-784. doi: 10.1021/jacsau.2c00536. eCollection 2023 Mar 27.

Authors

Ruben Canton-Vitoria^{1

2}, Takato Hotta¹, Mengsong Xue¹, Shaochun Zhang¹, Ryo Kitaura^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Nagoya University, Furo-Cho, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8602, Japan.
² Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute, National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vassileos Constantinou Avenue, Athens 116 35, Greece.
³ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.

Abstract

Although the synthesis of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides has been established in the last decade, synthesizing nanoribbons remains challenging. In this study, we have developed a straightforward method to obtain nanoribbons with controllable widths (25-8000 nm) and lengths (1-50 μm) by O₂ etching of the metallic phase in metallic/semiconducting in-plane heterostructures of monolayer MoS₂. We also successfully applied this process for synthesizing WS₂, MoSe₂, and WSe₂ nanoribbons. Furthermore, field-effect transistors of the nanoribbons show an on/off ratio of larger than 1000, photoresponses of 1000%, and time responses of 5 s. The nanoribbons were compared with monolayer MoS₂, highlighting a substantial difference in the photoluminescence emission and photoresponses. Additionally, the nanoribbons were used as a template to build one-dimensional (1D)-1D or 1D-2D heterostructures with various transition metal dichalcogenides. The process developed in this study offers simple production of nanoribbons with applications in several fields of nanotechnology and chemistry.