Supertwisted spirals of layered materials enabled by growth on non-Euclidean surfaces

We present a general model describing the growth of layered materials with screw-dislocation spirals on non-Euclidean surfaces and show that it leads to continuously twisted multilayer superstructures. This model is experimentally demonstrated by growing supertwisted spirals of tungsten disulfide (WS2) and tungsten diselenide (WSe2) draped over nanoparticles near the centers of spirals. Microscopic structural analysis shows that the crystal lattice twist is consistent with the geometric twist of the layers, leading to moiré superlattices between the atomic layers.

Source: ScienceNOW - October 22, 2020 Category: Science Authors: Zhao, Y., Zhang, C., Kohler, D. D., Scheeler, J. M., Wright, J. C., Voyles, P. M., Jin, S. Tags: Chemistry, Materials Science reports Source Type: news