Scientific Achievement
Direct observation of single layer transition metal carbide synthesis using bottom-up method that combines experiment and theory to elucidate growth mechanism.
Significance and Impact
Work provides valuable insight of growth mechanisms toward the future design of bottom-up synthesis methods that can be applied to a large family of two-dimensional transition metal carbides.
Research Details
– In situ scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) was used to study the homoepitaxial growth of single-layer TiC on Ti3C2 MXene surfaces at atomic resolution during thermal annealing.
– Growth results from an intricate interplay between migration energy, diffusion energy, substrate-dependent formation energy, and step-edge barrier as revealed by STEM and validated by density functional theory and molecular dynamics.
X. Sang, Y. Xie, D. E. Yilmaz, R. Lotfi, M. Alhabeb, A. Ostadhossein, B. Anasori, W. Sun, X. Li, Kai Xiao, P. R.C. Kent, A. van Duin, Y. Gogotsi, and R. R. Unocic, "In situ atomistic insight into the growth mechanisms of single layer 2D transition metal carbides," Nature Commun. 9, 2266 (2018). DOI:10.1038/s41467-018-04610-0
