Fuel cells in vehicles are the leading cause of carbon monoxide emissions. CO is one of the most dangerous gases in the atmosphere, as it binds to the hemoglobin in blood cells 200 times easier than O2. As the amount of CO in the blood stream increases, the level of oxygen decreases, which can lead to many neurological problems. To reduce the amount of CO in the atmosphere, scientists have focused on the adsorption of oxygen. The best substrates used today are platinum and palladium monolayers, which are very expensive. Because of this, researchers have searched for cheap materials, such as MoS2, that are able to adsorb oxygen. However, sulfur is a chemically inert site for the oxygen, which greatly decreases the catalytic potential of monolayer MoS2 sheets. Therefore, we carried out first-principles calculations to study the effect of substitutional doping and creating sulfur vacancies on the catalytic properties of MoS2. We calculated the adsorption energy of O on doped MoS2 sheets with vacancies, and compared it to the adsorption energy of O on a Pd monolayer. We found that doping MoS2 with Ir, Rh, Co and Fe significantly decreased the adsorption energy, to below -4 eV, indicating that doped MoS2 is a more effective catalyst than Pd. Incorporating sulfur vacancies into the doped MoS2 sheet was extremely effective, and decreased the adsorption energy below -6 eV. Our results show that iridium is the best catalyst as it has the lowest adsorption energy before and after sulfur vacancies were induced. We concluded that a combination of doping and creating vacancies in monolayer MoS2 sheets can greatly impact the catalytic behavior and make it a more effective, less expensive catalyst than Pt and Pd.
Structural defects in 2D materials offer an effective way to engineer new material functionalities beyond conventional doping in semiconductors. Specifically, deep in-gap defect states of chalcogen vacancies have been associated with intriguing phenomena in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Here, we report the direct experimental correlation of the atomic and electronic structure of a sulfur vacancy in monolayer WS2 by a combination of CO-tip noncontact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Sulfur vacancies, which are absent in as-grown samp…
Two-dimensional (2D) semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides such as MoS$_2$ have attracted extensive research interests for potential applications in optoelectronics, spintronics, photovoltaics, and catalysis. To harness the potential of these materials for electronic devices requires a better understanding of how defects control the carrier concentration, character, and mobility. Utilizing a correction scheme developed by Freysoldt and Neugebauer to ensure the appropriate electrostatic boundary conditions for charged defects in 2D materials, we perform density functional theory calcu…
The presence of elemental vacancies in materials is inevitable according to statistical thermodynamics, which will decide the chemical and physical properties of the investigated system. However, the controlled manipulation of vacancies for specific applications is a challenge. Here we report a facile method for creating large concentrations of S vacancies in the inert basal plane of MoS2 supported on semimetal CoMoP2. With a small applied potential, S atoms can be removed in the form of H2S due to the optimized free energy of formation. The existence of vacancies favors electron injection fro…
The modification of the potential-energy surface (PES) of H_2 dissociation over Pd(100) as induced by the presence of a (2x2) S adlayer is investigated by density-functional theory and the linear augmented plane wave method. It is shown that the poisoning effect of S originates from the formation of energy barriers hindering the dissociation of H_2. The barriers are in the entrance channel of the PES and their magnitude strongly depends on the lateral distance of the H_2 molecule from the S adatoms.
Catalysis is indispensable to chemical processes and relevant to many aspects of modern life. Owing to the intriguing electronic structures and good ionic properties, multivalent transition metal oxides have attracted attention as key catalysts for various energy and environmental applications. Here, we demonstrate that brownmillerite strontium cobaltite (SrCoO2.5) can be a good cathode material for sold oxide fuel cells and rechargeable batteries due to the open oxygen frameworks. When the orientation of oxygen vacancy channels (OVCs) is properly controlled, one can drastically increase the s…
Manganese oxide-coated TiO2 nanotube array (NTA) was synthesized and applied for the (electro)catalytic oxidation of sulfide. By setting the electrodeposition parameters and calcination temperature, the coating obtained was MnO2 or Mn2O3, with rod or needle like morphology. Excellent catalytic activity of the Ti/TiO2 NTA/MnxOy anodes resulted in robust and selective oxidation of sulfide to elemental sulfur via an inner sphere complex between the sulfide ion and Mn-oxide. The penetration of the MnxOy inside the NTA improved adhesion and enhanced the electron transfer, thus enabling complete and…
Using temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL), polarization resolved PL and Raman spectroscopy, we investigate the effect of in situ vacuum annealing as well as the relaxation of strain on the luminescence and the valley polarization properties of large area strictly monolayer (1L)-MoS$_2$, grown on sapphire and SiO$_2$/Si substrates by a microcavity based chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. The study shows that the strain as well as the physisorption of air molecules at the sulfur vacancy ($V_S$) sites play key roles in governing the optical quality of CVD grown 1L-MoS$_2$. Remova…
Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are two-dimensional (2D) materials with many potential applications. Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is a promising method to synthesize these materials. However, CVD-grown materials generally have poorer quality than mechanically exfoliated ones and contain more defects due to the difficulties in controlling precursors' distribution and concentration during growth where solid precursors are used. Here, we propose to use thiol as a liquid precursor for CVD growth of high quality and uniform 2D MoS2. Atomic-resolved structure characterizations…
While n-type semiconductor behavior appears to be more common in as-prepared two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), substitutional doping with acceptor atoms is typically required to tune the conductivity to p-type in order to facilitate their potential application in different devices. Here, we report a systematic study on the equivalent electrical "doping" effect of - single sulfur vacancies (V1S) in monolayer WS2 and MoS2 by studying the interface interaction of WS2-Au and MoS2-Au contacts. Based on our first principles calculations, we found that the V1S can signifi…
Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Catalysis of Pentlandite due to the Increases in Coordination Number and Sulfur Vacancy during Cubic-Hexagonal Phase Transition
We present here results of our first principles studies of the sulfur doping effects on the electronic and geometric structures of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4). Using the Ab initio thermodynamics approach combined with some kinetic analysis, we reveal the favorable S-doping configurations By analyzing the valence charge densities of the doped and un-doped systems, we find that sulfur partially donates its px- and py- electrons to the system with some back donation to the S pz-states. To obtain accurate description of the excited electronic states, we calculate the electronic structure of …
We have determined the electronic and atomic structure of N doped TiO2 using a combination of hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) and first- principles density functional theory calculations. Our results reveal that N doping of TiO2 leads to the formation of oxygen vacancies and the combination of both N impurity and oxygen vacancies accounts for the observed visible light catalytic behavior of N doped TiO2.
We demonstrate a thermodynamic formulation to quantify defect formation energetics in an insulator under high electric field. As a model system, we analyzed neutral oxygen vacancies (color centers) in alkaline-earth-metal binary oxides using density functional theory, Berry phase calculations, and maximally localized Wannier functions. Work of polarization lowers the field dependent electric Gibbs energy of formation of this defect. This is attributed mainly to the ease of polarizing the two electrons trapped in the vacant site, and secondarily to the defect induced reduction in bond stiffness…
Vacancy dynamics in oxides are vital for understanding redox reactions and resulting memristive effects or catalytic activity. We present a method to track and drive vacancies which we apply to metadynamics simulation of oxygen vacancies (V$_{\mathrm{O}}$) in rutile, demonstrating its effectiveness. Using the density functional based tight binding method, it is possible to explore the free energy hyperplane of oxygen vacancies in TiO$_{2}$. We show that the migration of V$_{\mathrm{O}}$ in TiO$_{2}$ is governed by the jump with the higherst number of realizations. Free energy profiles are cons…
Oxygen (O2) adsorbed on metal oxides is important in catalytic oxidation reactions, chemical sensing, and photocatalysis. Strong adsorption requires transfer of negative charge from oxygen vacancies (VOs) or dopants, for example. With scanning tunneling microscopy, we observed, transformed, and, in conjunction with theory, identified the nature of O2 molecules on the (101) surface of anatase (titanium oxide, TiO2) doped with niobium. VOs reside exclusively in the bulk, but we pull them to the surface with a strongly negatively charged scanning tunneling microscope tip. O2 adsorbed as superoxo …
We study by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy the structural response of bilayer graphene to electron irradiation with energies below the knock-on damage threshold of graphene. We observe that one type of divacancy, which we refer to as the butterfly defect, is formed for radiation energies and doses for which no vacancies are formed in clean monolayer graphene. By using first principles calculations based on density-functional theory, we analyze two possible causes related with the presence of a second layer that could explain the observed phenomenon: an increase of the defect …
Understanding the diffusion of oxygen vacancies in oxides under different external stimuli is crucial for the design of ion-based electronic devices, improve catalytic performance, etc. In this manuscript, using an external electric field produced by an AFM tip, we obtain the room-temperature diffusion coefficient of oxygen-vacancies in thin-films of SrTiO$_3$ under compressive/tensile epitaxial strain. Tensile strain produces a substantial increase of the diffusion coefficient, facilitating the mobility of vacancies through the film. Additionally, the effect of tip bias, pulse time, and tempe…
Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (ISMN) - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)（纳米结构材料研究所（ISMN）- 意大利国家研究委员会（CNR））；Istituto per la microelettronica e microsistemi (IMM) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Rome unit（微电子与微系统研究所（IMM）- 意大利国家研究委员会（CNR），罗马分部）；Istituto dei Materiali per l'Elettronica ed il Magnetismo (IMEM) - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)（电子与磁性材料研究所（IMEM）- 意大利国家研究委员会（CNR））；Department of Mathematical, Physical and Computer Sciences, University of Parma（帕尔马大学数学、物理和计算机科学系）；Dipartimento di Chimica “ U. Schiff” Università di Firenze（佛罗伦萨大学“U. Schiff”化学系）
Oxygen vacancies in transition metal oxides facilitate catalysis critical for energy storage and generation. However, it has proven elusive to promote vacancies at the lower temperatures required for operation in devices such as metal-air batteries and portable fuel cells. Here, we use thin films of the perovskite-based strontium cobaltite (SrCoOx) to show that epitaxial strain is a powerful tool towards manipulating the oxygen content under conditions consistent with the oxygen evolution reaction, yielding increasingly oxygen deficient states in an environment where the cobaltite would normal…
Two-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (2D-COFs) are an emerging family of catalytical materials with well-defined molecular structures. The stacking of 2D nanosheets and large intrinsic bandgaps significantly impair their performance. Here, we report coaxial one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures (1D vdWHs) comprised of a carbon nanotube (CNT) core and a thickness tunable thienothiophene-pyrene COF shell using a solution based in situ wrapping method. Density functional theory calculations and in-operando and ex-situ spectroscopic analysis show that the carbon-sulfur region in th…
Upscaling DFT-trained machine-learning interatomic potential toward Quantum Monte Carlo accuracy: Sulfur-vacancy migration in monolayer MoS$_2$ as a testbed
Institute of Informatics, Slovak Academy of Sciences（斯洛伐克科学院信息学研究所）；Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology（斯洛伐克技术大学信息技术学院）；Computational Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory（阿贡国家实验室计算科学部）；Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences（斯洛伐克科学院物理研究所）
Iron pyrite (FeS$_{2}$) is the most abundant metal sulfide on Earth. Owing to its reactivity and catalytic activity, pyrite has been studied in various research fields such as surface science, geochemistry, and prebiotic chemistry. Importantly, native iron-sulfur clusters are typically coordinated by cysteinyl ligands of iron-sulfur proteins. In the present paper, we study the adsorption of L-cysteine and its oxidized dimer, L-cystine, on the FeS$_{2}$ surface, using electronic structure calculations based density functional theory and Raman spectroscopy measurements. Our calculations suggest …
Among transition metal dichalcogenides (TMdCs) as alternatives for Pt-based catalysts, metallic-TMdCs catalysts have highly reactive basal-plane but are unstable. Meanwhile, chemically stable semiconducting-TMdCs show limiting catalytic activity due to their inactive basal-plane. Here, we propose metallic vanadium sulfide (VSn) nanodispersed in a semiconducting MoS2 film (V-MoS2) as an efficient catalyst. During synthesis, vanadium atoms are substituted into hexagonal monolayer MoS2 to form randomly distributed VSn units. The V-MoS2 film on a Cu electrode exhibits Pt-scalable catalytic perform…
Synergistic Effects of Phosphorus Doping and Oxygen Vacancies on Formaldehyde Oxidation over CeO$_2$(111): A First Principles Investigation
Université de Lorraine（洛林大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；LEMTA（材料力学与转化实验室）；Université de Monastir（莫纳斯特尔大学）；Faculté des Sciences de Monastir（莫纳斯特尔理学院）；Laboratoire de la matière condensée et nanosciences LR11ES40（凝聚态物质与纳米科学实验室 LR11ES40）；Laboratoire Lorrain de Chimie Moléculaire（洛林分子化学实验室）；Université Lyon 1（里昂第一大学）；IRCELYON（催化、材料和表面研究所）；UMR 5256（联合研究单位 5256）
Enhanced room temperature ferromagnetism in nanostructured MoS2 flakes by hydrogen post-treatment: Combined experimental and first-principles-based studies
We explore the combined impact of sulfur vacancies and electronic interactions on the optical properties of monolayer MoS$_2$. First, we present a generalized Anderson-Hubbard Hamiltonian that accounts for both randomly distributed sulfur vacancies and the presence of dielectric screening within the material. Second, we parameterize this energy-dependent Hamiltonian from first-principles calculations based on density functional theory and the Green function and screened Coulomb (GW) method. Third, we apply a first-principles-based many-body typical medium method to determine the single-particl…
It has been demonstrated in previous experimental and computational work that doping CeO2 with transition metals is an effective way of tuning its properties. However, each previous study on CeO2 doping has been limited to a single or a few dopants. In this paper, we systematically study the formation energies, structural stability and electronic properties of CeO2 doped with the entire range of the ten 3d transition metals using density functional theory (DFT) calculations at the hybrid level. The formation energies of oxygen vacancies, and their effects on electronic properties, were also co…
Controlling the threshold voltage (Vth) of a field-effect transistor is important for realizing robust logic circuits. Here, we report a facile approach to achieve bidirectional Vth tuning of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field-effect transistors. By increasing and decreasing the amount of sulfur vacancies in the MoS2 surface, the Vth of MoS2 transistors can be left- and right-shifted, respectively. Transistors fabricated on perfect MoS2 flakes are found to exhibit two-fold enhancement in mobility and a very positive Vth. More importantly, our elegant hydrogen treatment is able to tune the large…
Phase transformation kinetics in MoS2 governed by S-S repulsive interactions and defect-interface compatibility
State Key Laboratory of Materials for Integrated Circuits, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海微系统与信息技术研究所集成电路材料国家重点实验室）；Suzhou Laboratory（苏州实验室）
The chemical inertness of the defect-free basal plane confers environmental stability to MoS2 single-layers, but it also limits their chemical versatility and catalytic activity. The stability of the pristine MoS2 basal plane against oxidation under ambient conditions is a widely accepted assumption in the interpretation of various studies and applications. However, single-atom level structural investigations reported here reveal that oxygen atoms spontaneously incorporate into the basal plane of MoS2 single layers during ambient exposure. Our scanning tunneling microscopy investigations revea…
The bright side of defects in MoS$_2$ and WS$_2$ and a generalizable chemical treatment protocol for defect passivation
University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；Uppsala University（乌普萨拉大学）；Yale University（耶鲁大学）；Weizmann Institute of Science（魏茨曼科学研究所）；Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学工程系）；Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学剑桥石墨烯中心）；Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学化学系）；Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学化学工程与生物技术系）；University of California Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
Irradiation with high-energy particles has recently emerged as an effective tool for tailoring the properties of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. In order to carry out an atomically-precise manipulation of the lattice, a detailed understanding of the beam-induced events occurring at the atomic scale is necessary. Here, we investigate the response of $1T'$-MoS$_2$ to the electron irradiation by $ab$ $initio$ molecular dynamics means. Our simulations suggest that an electron beam with energy smaller than 75 keV does not result in any knock-on damage. The displacement threshold e…
Local magnetic impurities arising from atomic vacancies in two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets are predicted to have a profound effect on charge transport due to resonant scattering, and provide a handle for enhancing thermoelectric properties through the Kondo effect. However, the effects of these impurities are often masked by external fluctuations and turbostratic interfaces, therefore, it is highly challenging to probe the correlation between magnetic impurities and thermoelectric parameters experimentally. In this work, we demonstrate that by placing Molybdenum Disulfide on a hexagonal Boron …
The effect of selenium substitution by sulfur or tellurium in the Tl1-yFe2-zSe2 antiferromagnet was studied by x-ray and electron diffraction, magnetization and transport measurements. Tl0.8Fe1.5(Se1-xXx)2 (nominal composition) solid solutions were synthesized in the full x range (0<x<1) for X=S and up to x=0.5 for X=Te, using the sealed tube technique. No superconductivity was found down to 4.2K in the case of sulfur despite the fact that the optimal crystallographic parameters, determined by Rietveld refinements, are reached in the series (i.e. the Fe-(Se,S) interplane height and (Se,S)-Fe-(…
