Detonation exfoliated mechanism of graphene-like MoS2 prepared by the intercalation-detonation method and promising exfoliation for 2D materials

Abstract

Due to its intrinsic band gap, graphene-like MoS2 has been widely studied. It has a significant potential for applications in novel electronic, semiconductor and optoelectronic devices. For comparison, five kinds of explosion mass ratios were used to investigate the detonation exfoliated mechanism of graphene-like MoS2 prepared by the intercalation-detonation method. Bulk WS2 and h-BN powders were also exfoliated by detonation method. X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy results show that pure MoS2 nanosheets with hexagonal crystal structure were obtained with the 1:1 detonation mass mixture ratio of picric acid and MoS2 powder. 2:1 detonation mass mixture ratio produced monolayer MoS2 nanosheets, but a spot of MoS2 can also be decomposed to Mo2S3 and S at high explosion temperature. The higher the detonation mass mixture ratio, the more MoS2 is proposed to be decomposed. The 1:1 detonation mass mixture ratio is the most suitable to exfoliate graphene-like MoS2 nanosheets. Bulk WS2 and h-BN were detonation exfoliated to single and few layers nanosheets successfully, showing the promising wide range of application of exfoliation in two-dimensional materials.