Abstract
The hot injection synthesis of nanomaterials is a highly diverse and fundamental field of chemical research, which has shown much success in the bottom up approach to nanomaterial design. Here we report a synthetic strategy for the production of anisotropic metal chalcogenide nanomaterials of different compositions and shapes, using an optimised hot injection approach. Its unique advantage compared to other hot injection routes is that it employs one chemical to act as many agents: high boiling point, viscous solvent, reducing agent, and surface coordinating ligand. It has been employed to produce a range of nanomaterials, such as CuS, Bi2S3, Cu2-xSe, FeSe2, and Bi4Se3, among others, with various structures including nanoplates and nanosheets. Overall, this article will highlight the excellent versatility of the method, which can be tuned to produce many different materials and shapes. In addition, due to the nature of the synthesis, 2D nanomaterial products are produced as monolayers without the need for exfoliation; a significant achievement towards future development of these materials.
Highlights
Advances in nanotechnology and materials science has enabled the control of the dimensions and properties of materials at the nanoscale
There is a scarcity of adaptable methods for the shape-selective synthesis of anisotropic particles, because the underlying chemistry of each system is a deciding factor[5]
The shape of anisotropic particles are determined by competing factors, such as preferential attachment to different crystal facets, surfactant-mediated directional growth, and surface coordinating ligands[11,12,13]
Summary
Advances in nanotechnology and materials science has enabled the control of the dimensions and properties of materials at the nanoscale Interesting variations in their properties based on differences in their size and shape is expected. The crystallographic structure of a solid material, its surface free energy, surfactants, various templates, kinetically controlled by supersaturation and other factors all play crucial roles in the anisotropic growth of nanomaterials[3,4,5] Thermal decomposition techniques such as the hot injection method is one of the most widely used synthetic approaches for nanomaterial synthesis, due to its ability to form highly crystalline, monodisperse nanoparticles in reasonable yield[6,7,8,9,10]. It is a complex, multifaceted field requiring understanding and collaboration across a number of disciplines
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