Vertically Oriented Arrays of ReS2 Nanosheets for Electrochemical Energy Storage and Electrocatalysis
By Gao, Jian; Li, Lu; Tan, Jiawei; Sun, Hao; Li, Baichang; Idrobo, Juan Carlos; Singh, Chandra Veer; Lu, Toh-Ming; Koratkar, Nikhil
Published in Nano Letters
2016
Abstract
Transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) nanolayers show potential as high-performance catalysts in energy conversion and storage devices. Synthetic TMDs produced by chemical-vapor deposition (CVD) methods tend to grow parallel to the growth substrate. Here, we show that with the right precursors and appropriate tuning of the CVD growth conditions, ReS2 nanosheets can be made to orient perpendicular to the growth substrate. This accomplishes two important objectives; first, it drastically increases the wetted or exposed surface area of the ReS2 sheets, and second, it exposes the sharp edges and corners of the ReS2 sheets. We show that these structural features of the vertically grown ReS2 sheets can be exploited to significantly improve their performance as polysulfide immobilizers and electrochemical catalysts in lithium