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Lunardon M, Kosmala T, Ghorbani-Asl M, Krasheninnikov AV, Kolekar S, Durante C, Batzill M, Agnoli S, Granozzi G. Catalytic Activity of Defect-Engineered Transition Me tal Dichalcogenides Mapped with Atomic-Scale Precision by Electrochemical Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. ACS ENERGY LETTERS 2023; 8:972-980. [PMID: 36816778 PMCID: PMC9926491 DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.2c02599] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2022] [Accepted: 01/03/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Unraveling structure-activity relationships is a key objective of catalysis. Unfortunately, the intrinsic complexity and structural heterogeneity of materials stand in the way of this goal, mainly because the activity measurements are area-averaged and therefore contain information coming from different surface sites. This limitation can be surpassed by the analysis of the noise in the current of electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (EC-STM). Herein, we apply this strategy to investigate the catalytic activity toward the hydrogen evolution reaction of monolayer films of MoSe2. Thanks to atomically resolved potentiodynamic experiments, we can evaluate individually the catalytic activity of the MoSe2 basal plane, selenium vacancies, and different point defects produced by the intersections of metallic twin boundaries. The activity trend deduced by EC-STM is independently confirmed by density functional theory calculations, which also indicate that, on the metallic twin boundary crossings, the hydrogen adsorption energy is almost thermoneutral. The micro- and macroscopic measurements are combined to extract the turnover frequency of different sites, obtaining for the most active ones a value of 30 s-1 at -136 mV vs RHE.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marco Lunardon
- Department
of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
| | - Tomasz Kosmala
- Department
of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
- Institute
of Experimental Physics, University of Wrocław, Wrocław 50-204, Poland
| | - Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl
- Institute
of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf Dresden 01328, Germany
| | - Arkady V. Krasheninnikov
- Institute
of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf Dresden 01328, Germany
- Department
of Applied Physics, Aalto University, 00076 Aalto, Finland
| | - Sadhu Kolekar
- Department
of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
| | - Christian Durante
- Department
of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
| | - Matthias Batzill
- Department
of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States
| | - Stefano Agnoli
- Department
of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
- INSTM
Research
Unit, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
| | - Gaetano Granozzi
- Department
of Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
- INSTM
Research
Unit, University of Padova, Padova 35131, Italy
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A Tribute to Professor Gaetano Granozzi and His Contributions to Surface Science on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. SURFACES 2021. [DOI: 10.3390/surfaces4040024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
On the occasion of his 70th birthday, we celebrate the career of our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Gaetano Granozzi [...]
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Thomas CJ, Fonseca JJ, Spataru CD, Robinson JT, Ohta T. Electronic Structure and Stacking Arrangement of Tungsten Disulfide at the Gold Contact. ACS NANO 2021; 15:18060-18070. [PMID: 34623816 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c06676] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
There is an intensive effort to control the nature of attractive interactions between ultrathin semiconductors and metals and to understand its impact on the electronic properties at the junction. Here, we present a photoelectron spectroscopy study on the interface between WS2 films and gold, with a focus on the occupied electronic states near the Brillouin zone center (i.e., the Γ point). To delineate the spectra of WS2 supported on crystalline Au from the suspended WS2, we employ a microscopy approach and a tailored sample structure, in which the WS2/Au junction forms a semi-epitaxial relationship and is adjacent to suspended WS2 regions. The photoelectron spectra, as a function of WS2 thickness, display the expected splitting of the highest occupied states at the Γ point. In multilayer WS2, we discovered variations in the electronic states that spatially align with the crystalline grains of underlying Au. Corroborated by density functional theory calculations, we attribute the electronic structure variations to stacking variations within the WS2 films. We propose that strong interactions exerted by Au grains cause slippage of the interfacing WS2 layer with respect to the rest of the WS2 film. Our findings illustrate that the electronic properties of transition metal dichalcogenides, and more generally 2D layered materials, are physically altered by the interactions with the interfacing materials, in addition to the electron screening and defects that have been widely considered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cherrelle J Thomas
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States
| | - Jose J Fonseca
- National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, District of Columbia 20375 United States
| | - Catalin D Spataru
- Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California 94551, United States
| | - Jeremy T Robinson
- U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, District of Columbia 20375 United States
| | - Taisuke Ohta
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States
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