title: Top-down fabrication of sub-nanometre semiconducting nanoribbons derived from molybdenum disulfide sheets.
abstract: Developments in semiconductor technology are propelling the dimensions of devices down to 10 nm, but facing great challenges in manufacture at the sub-10 nm scale. Nanotechnology can fabricate nanoribbons from two-dimensional atomic crystals, such as graphene, with widths below the 10 nm threshold, but their geometries and properties have been hard to control at this scale. Here we find that robust ultrafine molybdenum-sulfide ribbons with a uniform width of 0.35 nm can be widely formed between holes created in a MoS2 sheet under electron irradiation. In situ high-resolution transmission electron microscope characterization, combined with first-principles calculations, identifies the sub-1 nm ribbon as a Mo5S4 crystal derived from MoS2, through a spontaneous phase transition. Further first-principles investigations show that the Mo5S4 ribbon has a band gap of 0.77 eV, a Young's modulus of 300GPa and can demonstrate 9% tensile strain before fracture. The results show a novel top-down route for controllable fabrication of functional building blocks for sub-nanometre electronics.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Key Laboratory for Intelligent Nano Materials and Devices of Ministry of Education and Institute of Nano Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China.
authors: Xiaofei
authors: X
authors: Liu
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Xu
authors: Xing
authors: X
authors: Wu
authors: Zhuhua
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
authors: Jin
authors: J
authors: Yu
authors: Hao
authors: H
authors: Qiu
authors: Jin-Hua
authors: JH
authors: Hong
authors: Chuan-Hong
authors: CH
authors: Jin
authors: Ji-Xue
authors: JX
authors: Li
authors: Xin-Ran
authors: XR
authors: Wang
authors: Li-Tao
authors: LT
authors: Sun
authors: Wanlin
authors: W
authors: Guo
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