Metal telluride nanosheets by scalable solid lithiation and exfoliation

Liangzhu Zhang; Zixuan Yang; Shun Feng; Zhuobin Guo; Qingchao Jia; Huidan Zeng; Yajun Ding; Pratteek Das; Zhihong Bi; Jiaxin Ma; Yunqi Fu; Sen Wang; Jinxing Mi; Shuanghao Zheng; Mingrun Li; Dong-Ming Sun; Ning Kang; Zhong-Shuai Wu; Hui-Ming Cheng

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07209-2

Metal telluride nanosheets by scalable solid lithiation and exfoliation

Nature. 2024 Apr;628(8007):313-319. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07209-2. Epub 2024 Apr 3.

Authors

Liangzhu Zhang^#^{1

2

3}, Zixuan Yang^#⁴, Shun Feng⁵, Zhuobin Guo^{1

6}, Qingchao Jia^{2

3}, Huidan Zeng^{2

3}, Yajun Ding¹, Pratteek Das¹, Zhihong Bi^{1

6}, Jiaxin Ma¹, Yunqi Fu⁴, Sen Wang¹, Jinxing Mi¹, Shuanghao Zheng^{1

7}, Mingrun Li¹, Dong-Ming Sun⁵, Ning Kang⁸, Zhong-Shuai Wu^{9

10}, Hui-Ming Cheng^{11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.
³ Shanghai Electronic Chemicals innovation Institute, East China University of science and Technology, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Center for Carbon-based Electronics, School of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁵ Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China.
⁶ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁷ Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China.
⁸ Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Center for Carbon-based Electronics, School of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, China. nkang@pku.edu.cn.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China. wuzs@dicp.ac.cn.
¹⁰ Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China. wuzs@dicp.ac.cn.
¹¹ Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China. hm.cheng@siat.ac.cn.
¹² Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Energy Materials for Carbon Neutrality, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China. hm.cheng@siat.ac.cn.
¹³ Faculty of Materials Science and Energy Engineering, Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen, China. hm.cheng@siat.ac.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38570689
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07209-2

Abstract

Transition metal tellurides (TMTs) have been ideal materials for exploring exotic properties in condensed-matter physics, chemistry and materials science^1-3. Although TMT nanosheets have been produced by top-down exfoliation, their scale is below the gram level and requires a long processing time, restricting their effective application from laboratory to market^4-8. We report the fast and scalable synthesis of a wide variety of MTe₂ (M = Nb, Mo, W, Ta, Ti) nanosheets by the solid lithiation of bulk MTe₂ within 10 min and their subsequent hydrolysis within seconds. Using NbTe₂ as a representative, we produced more than a hundred grams (108 g) of NbTe₂ nanosheets with 3.2 nm mean thickness, 6.2 µm mean lateral size and a high yield (>80%). Several interesting quantum phenomena, such as quantum oscillations and giant magnetoresistance, were observed that are generally restricted to highly crystalline MTe₂ nanosheets. The TMT nanosheets also perform well as electrocatalysts for lithium-oxygen batteries and electrodes for microsupercapacitors (MSCs). Moreover, this synthesis method is efficient for preparing alloyed telluride, selenide and sulfide nanosheets. Our work opens new opportunities for the universal and scalable synthesis of TMT nanosheets for exploring new quantum phenomena, potential applications and commercialization.