WS2 fullerene/plate nanofibers: The tunable crossroad between dimensionalities

Abstract

Our work describes the nanofibrous materials of tungsten disulfide, which can be tuned by the precursor's crystallinity degree. The carefully formulated nanofibers create the morphological crossroad between fullerenes (0D), nanotubes (1D), plates (2D), and a nonwoven web of nanofibers (3D), containing all the advantageous properties of the presented material categories. Our synthetic methodology (electrospinning, reductive sulfidation) allows scale-up to industrial production. In addition, we studied the optical properties of the WS2 nanofibers using extinction and absolute absorption measurements. The results of the optical analysis further indicate the higher crystallinity of the closed stacked fullerene-based structure. By comparing the extinction with the absorbance, we find that all the examined nanostructures display typical polaritonic spectra. However, the open plate structure exhibits a stronger scattering and thus better pronounced polaritonic features. Moreover, the ability to control the morphology allows for variating polaritonic features of the final nanofibrous material, which can directly impact the potential optoelectronic and photocatalytic applications.