One-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide lateral heterostructures.

Forming heterostructures is a well-established technique to utilize different constituent materials to achieve novel properties like efficient light emission and high-quality electron tunneling. Recent experiments have successfully synthesized one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures and have discovered plenty of superior properties benefiting from the dimension reduction. Inspired by the success of the van der Waals counterparts, we propose a one-dimensional lateral heterostructure based on transition metal dichalcogenide nanotubes. Molecular simulations show that the misfit strain is restricted to the radial direction due to the one-dimensional tubular confined structure, and the regular exponential distribution of the radial misfit strain can be well interpreted by a mechanics model. Besides the normal exponential distribution, there also exists an abnormal strain distribution within a narrow domain nearby the interface, in which the structure of the larger lattice constant is stretched instead of compressed by the misfit strain. The abnormal misfit strain is due to the interplay between several bending interactions and the stretching interaction. Possible experiments to synthesize this new type of heterostructure are discussed based on current experimental techniques.