Chemistry of Materials: Impurity controlled crystal growth in low dimensional bismuth telluride

Impurity controlled crystal growth in low dimensional bismuth telluride

Sharifi, T., Yazdi, S., Costin, G., Apte, A., Coulter, G., Tiwary, C., and Ajayan, P.M.

Chemistry of Materials,  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b02548

ABSTRACT

Topological insulators, such as layered Bi2Te3, exhibit extraordinary properties, manifesting profoundly only
at nanoscale thicknesses. However, it has been challenging to synthesize these structures with controlled thickness. Here,
control over the thickness of solvothermally grown Bi2Te3 nanosheets is demonstrated by manipulating the crystal growth
through selected and controlled impurity atom addition. By a comprehensive analysis of growth mechanism and the intentional
addition of Fe impurity, it is demonstrated that the nucleation and growth of few-layer nanosheets of Bi2Te3 can be
stabilized in solution. By optimizing the Fe concentration, nanosheets thinner than 6 nm, and as thin as 2 nm, can be
synthesized. Such thicknesses are smaller than the anticipated critical thickness for the transition of topological
insulators to the quantum spin Hall regime.

 

Sharifi, T., Yazdi, S., Costin, G., Apte, A., Coulter, G., Tiwary, C., and Ajayan, P.M. (2018). Impurity controlled crystal growth in low dimensional bismuth telluride. Chemistry of Materials, p. acs.chemmater.8b02548. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b02548

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b02548

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