title: Low-Temperature Solution Synthesis of Few-Layer 1T '-MoTe2 Nanostructures Exhibiting Lattice Compression.
abstract: Molybdenum ditelluride, MoTe2 , is emerging as an important transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) material because of its favorable properties relative to other TMDs. The 1T ' polymorph of MoTe2 is particularly interesting because it is semimetallic with bands that overlap near the Fermi level, but semiconducting 2H-MoTe2 is more stable and therefore more accessible synthetically. Metastable 1T '-MoTe2 forms directly in solution at 300 °C as uniform colloidal nanostructures that consist of few-layer nanosheets, which appear to exhibit an approx. 1 % lateral lattice compression relative to the bulk analogue. Density functional theory calculations suggest that small grain sizes and polycrystallinity stabilize the 1T ' phase in the MoTe2 nanostructures and suppress its transformation back to the more stable 2H polymorph through grain boundary pinning. Raman spectra of the 1T '-MoTe2 nanostructures exhibit a laser energy dependence, which could be caused by electronic transitions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Yifan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Yuanxi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Du
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 30123-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Bruno R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Carlos G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Read
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Chia-Hui
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Zhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Kazunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujisawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Vincent H
authors.initials: VH
authors.lastname: Crespi
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. mut11@psu.edu.|Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. mut11@psu.edu.|Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. mut11@psu.edu.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. mut11@psu.edu.
authors.forename: Mauricio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Terrones
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. res20@psu.edu.|Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA. res20@psu.edu.
authors.forename: Raymond E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Schaak
keywords: chalcogenides; layered compounds; metastable compounds; nanostructures; transition-metal dichalcogenides