Controlled Synthesis and Frictional Properties of 2D MoTe2 via Chemical Vapor Deposition

Abstract We report a controllable method to synthesize two different morphologies of two dimensional (2D) 1T′-MoTe 2 film: rectangular MoTe 2 and irregular MoTe 2 , respectively. The synthesis was carried out via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with sodium chloride (NaCl) as promoters. Our results show that topography of rectangular MoTe 2 nanosheets have more uniform thickness while irregular nanosheets have poorer crystallization quality with more grain boundaries. Moreover, the surface friction decreases with the increasing thickness of 2D MoTe 2 , owing to the gradually decreased surface corrugation of nanosheets as the thickness increase. Our work provides a feasible method to synthesize the challenging transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs).