The origin of the enhanced performance of nitrogen-doped MoS2 in lithium ion batteries.

MoS2 with a similar layered structure to graphene has been widely applied in various areas including lithium ion batteries. However, low conductivity, capacity fading and poor rate performance are still the main challenges for MoS2 anode materials. In this work, for the first time, we prepared nitrogen-doped MoS2 (N-MoS2) nanosheets through a simple two-step method involving the preparation of MoS2 with defects by the hydrothermal method, followed by sintering in a NH3 atmosphere. Our electrochemical characterizations and density functional theory calculations demonstrated that nitrogen doping could enhance the electron conductivity and showed higher specific capacity than pristine MoS2 as anode materials of lithium ion batteries, which can be attributed to the faster transportation of electrons and ions because of nitrogen doping. This work helps us understand the origin of the enhanced performance of N-doped MoS2 in lithium ion batteries.