Xu W., Li S., Pasta M., Warner J.H.
University of Oxford, UK
Keywords: defect engineering, electrocatalyst, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), monolayer dendrites
Dendritic structures display a high density of edge sites, which are electrocatalytically active in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, given that the basal plane of 2H- phase MoS2 synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is inert, activation strategies have been explored to utilize 2H-phase MoS2 as an efficient electrocatalyst toward applications in HER. Here single-layer MoS2 dendrites grown by CVD were engineered with oxygen plasma so that numerous defects are generated prevailingly across its basal plane. We observe PL enhancement in the defect regions, caused by the heavy p-type doping and the conversion from trion to exciton and the suppression of nonradiative recombination of excitons. More importantly, the as-treated MoS2 exhibits improved HER performance along with high cycling stability, owning to the great addition of sulfur vacancies and the increase in edge site density.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: TechConnect Briefs 2019
Published: June 17, 2019
Pages: 97 - 100
Industry sector: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing
Topics: Advanced Materials for Engineering Applications, Materials Characterization & Imaging
ISBN: 978-0-9988782-8-7