Toward understanding the phase-selective growth mechanism of films and geometrically-shaped flakes of 2D MoTe.

Two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe) is an interesting material for fundamental study and applications, due to its ability to exist in different polymorphs of 2H, 1T, and 1T', their phase change behavior, and unique electronic properties. Although much progress has been made in the growth of high-quality flakes and films of 2H and 1T'-MoTe phases, phase-selective growth of all three phases remains a huge challenge, due to the lack of enough information on their growth mechanism. Herein, we present a novel approach to growing films and geometrical-shaped few-layer flakes of 2D 2H-, 1T-, and 1T'-MoTe by atmospheric-pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) and present a thorough understanding of the phase-selective growth mechanism by employing the concept of thermodynamics and chemical kinetics involved in the growth processes.

Multimaterial Self-Aligned Nanopatterning by Simultaneous Adjacent Thin Film Deposition and Etching.

Printed component sizes in electronic circuits are approaching 10 nm, but inherent variability in feature alignment during photolithography poses a fundamental barrier for continued device scaling. Deposition-based self-aligned patterning is being introduced, but nuclei defects remain an overarching problem. This work introduces low-temperature chemically self-aligned film growth simultaneous thin film deposition and etching in adjacent regions on a nanopatterned surface.

Highly Uniform and Conducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Thin Films via Controlling the Dewetting Phenomenon.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have received substantial attention as alternatives to indium tin oxide for the production of transparent conductors. However, problems associated with the dewetting of liquid thin films have hindered the reliable fabrication of networked conducting CNT films via solution-based processes. In this study, the dewetting of liquid thin films containing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on substrates is successfully retarded by simply adding ethylene glycol to the SWCNT dispersion, and highly uniform SWCNT thin films are obtained using the meniscus-dragging deposition (MDD) method.

Highly Transparent and Stretchable Conductors Based on a Directional Arrangement of Silver Nanowires by a Microliter-Scale Solution Process.

We report an effective method for fabricating highly transparent and stretchable large-area conducting films based on a directional arrangement of silver nanowires (AgNWs) driven by a shear force in a microliter-scale solution process. The thin conducting films with parallel AgNWs or cross-junctions of AgNWs are deposited on the coating substrate by dragging a microliter drop of the coating solution trapped between two plates. The optical and electrical properties of the AgNW thin films are finely tuned by varying the simple systematic parameters in the coating process.

Novel Synthesis, Coating, and Networking of Curved Copper Nanowires for Flexible Transparent Conductive Electrodes.

In this work, a whole manufacturing process of the curved copper nanowires (CCNs) based flexible transparent conductive electrode (FTCE) is reported with all solution processes, including synthesis, coating, and networking. The CCNs with high purity and good quality are designed and synthesized by a binary polyol coreduction method. In this reaction, volume ratio and reaction time are the significant factors for the successful synthesis.