Bottom‐up Synthesis of Highly Chiral 1T Molybdenum Disulfide Nanosheets
Lorenzo Branzi, Lucy Fitzsimmons, Yurii K. Gun’ko
Abstract
Abstract Chirality in inorganic nanostructures has recently stimulated the attention of many researchers, both to unravel fundamental questions on the origin of chirality in inorganic and hybrid materials, as well as to introduce novel promising properties that are originated by the symmetry breaking. MoS 2 is one of the most investigated among the large family of layered transition metal dichalcogenides. In particular, the metastable metallic 1T−MoS 2 phase is of large interest for potential applications. However, due to thermodynamic reasons, the synthesis of 1T−MoS 2 phase is quite challenging. Herein, we present the first synthesis of chiral 1T−MoS 2 phase which shows remarkably high chiroptical activity with a g‐factor up to 0.01. Chiral 1T−MoS 2 was produced using tartaric acid as a chiral ligand to induce symmetry breaking during the material's growth under hydrothermal conditions, leading to the formation of distorted hierarchical nanosheet assemblies exhibiting chiral morphology. Thorough optimization of the synthetic conditions was carried out to maximize chiroptical activity, which is strongly related to the nanostructures’ morphology. Finally, the formation mechanism of the chiral 1T−MoS 2 nanosheet assemblies was investigated, focusing on the role of molecular intermediates in the growth of the nanosheets and the transfer of chirality.