Fully lithiated lithium sulphide (Li2S) is currently being explored as a promising cathode material for emerging energy storage applications. Like their sulphur counterparts, Li2S cathodes require effective encapsulation to reduce the dissolution of intermediate lithium polysulphide (Li2Sn, n=4-8) species into the electrolyte. Here we report, the encapsulation of Li2S cathodes using two-dimensi...

MoOx shows promising potential as an efficient hole injection layer for p-FETs based on transition metal dichalcogenides. A combination of experiment and theory is used to study the surface and interfacial chemistry, as well as the band alignments for MoOx/MoS2 and MoOx/WSe2 heterostructures, using photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, and density functional theory. A Mo(5+...

High-performance electrode materials are the key to advances in the areas of energy conversion and storage (e.g., fuel cells and batteries). In this Review, recent progress in the synthesis and electrochemical application of transition metal carbides (TMCs) and nitrides (TMNs) for energy storage and conversion is summarized. Their electrochemical properties in Li-ion and Na-ion batteries as wel...

The remarkable properties of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have attracted increasing attention on two-dimensional materials, but the gate oxide, one of the key components of two-dimensional electronic devices, has rarely reported. We found the single-layer oxide can be used as the two dimensional gate oxide in 2D electronic structure, such as TiO2. However, the electrica...

Semiconductor heterostructures are fundamental building blocks for many important device applications. The emergence of two-dimensional semiconductors opens up a new realm for creating heterostructures. As the bandgaps of transition metal dichalcogenides thin films have sensitive layer dependence, it is natural to create lateral heterojunctions (HJs) using the same materials with different thic...

2014 Fe1+xNb3-xSe10 with x = 0.32, 0.38 and Cr1.45Nb2.55Se10 were prepared by heating in evacuated silica tubes. The structure was determined by Weissenberg photograph. The metal-insulator transition of Fe1+xNb3-xSe10 and of Cr1.45Nb2.55Se10 was studied by measurements of resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility. The metal-insulator transition is correlated with the CDW which depresses the cond...

We have successfully proposed the application of transition metal compounds in holographic recording media. Such compounds feature an ultra-fast light-induced linkage isomerization of the transition-metal-ligand bond with switching times in the sub-picosecond regime and lifetimes from microseconds up to hours at room temperature. This article highlights the photofunctionality of two of the most...

Transition metal oxides offer functional properties beyond conventional semiconductors. Bridging the gap between the fundamental research frontier in oxide electronics and their realization in commercial devices demands a wafer-scale growth approach for high-quality transition metal oxide thin films. Such a method requires excellent control over the transition metal valence state to avoid perfo...

Decoration of tetrelchalcogenide T-E clusters with chelating donor ligands was achieved to capture transition metal ions on their surfaces. We demonstrate that by covalent linking of bispyridyl ligands to an Sn-S complex, [ZnX](+) units can be trapped and incorporated into the cluster framework. Intermediates that were identified using spectroscopy and/or X-ray diffraction gave insight into the...

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconducting monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have stimulated lots of interest because they are direct bandgap materials that have reasonably good mobility values. However, contact between most metals and semiconducting TMDCs like 2H phase WSe2 are highly resistive, thus degrading the performance of field effect transistors (FETs) fabricated with WSe2 as...