Skip to main content

Molecular Foundry

HIGHLIGHTSMoS2 Liquid Cell Electron Microscopy Through Clean and Fast Polymer-Free MoS2 Transfer
March 14, 2019

The development of MoS2 liquid cells for in-situ TEM enables direct observation of the growth of Pt nanocrystals on MoS2 through Van der Waals interactions. Left: Schematic illustration of encapsulating liquids in a MoS2 liquid cell. Right: Representative image MoS2showing the relative crystal orientation between Pt nanocrystals and MoS2. The image was obtained by overlapping the lattice fringes of Pt nanocrystals on an inverse FFT TEM image of MoS2 (a fire color lookup table).

Scientific Achievement

Developed MoS2 liquid cells for in situ TEM studies of Pt-MoS2 heterostructure formation.

Significance and Impact

Liquid cells using 2D MoS2 as a functional substrate and membrane window allow the direct observation of Pt nanocrystal growth on the MoS2 substrate, and can be applied to other systems.

Research Details

  • A novel facile MoS2 transfer process without the need for polymer protection produces clean MoS2 membranes with high yield.
  • MoS2 membranes of three layers (∼2 nm) thickness were found to be ideal for the development of liquid cells.
  • In-situ TEM studies revealed the growth kinetics and van der Waals epitaxy of Pt nanocrystals on the MoS2 substrate.
J. Yang, M. K. Choi, Y. Sheng, J. Jung, K. Bustillo, T. Chen, S.-W. Lee, P. Ercius, J. H. Kim, J. H. Warner, E. M. Chan, H. Zheng, Nano Letters (2019) DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b04821

Was this page useful?

Send
like not like