1D Te Research Articles

Enlocking the high Zn2+-storage of conversion-type Te cathode by regulating the surface binding-interaction with graphene

As a typical conversion-type cathode for aqueous zinc ion batteries (ZIBs), Te cathode exhibits flat platform slope, stable output voltage and high volumetric capacity. However, large volume expansion and low utilization of Te has greatly hampered its commercialization. We tackle these limitations by constructing hierarchical Te-rGO structure with Te nanorods wrapped tightly by a low percentage of graphene to achieve high electrochemical performance. The chemical TeC bond between Te and graphene provides a strong affinity of Te to graphene, making for enhanced conductivity and structural stability of the electrode in the case of over 90% Te content. 1D Te nanorods also facilitate axial charge transfer and adequate use of active material. During cycling, a two-step solid-to-solid conversion reaction mechanism of Te-ZnTe2-ZnTe is proved by ex-situ XRD/XPS/UV–vis, illustrating the elimination of shuttle effects process which is also in favor of intrinsic cycling stability. The three-pronged benefits give Te-rGO cathode a good comprehensive Zn2+ storage performance, with stable output potential, high energy density of 394.4 Wh kg−1 at 28.5 W kg−1 and superb cycling stability with little decay over 2500 cycles at 6 A g−1. Thus, this work gives insights in conversion-type cathodes to make Te-rGO a worthy contender for future commercial aqueous ZIBs.

Precisely Orientating Atomic Array in One-Dimension Tellurium Microneedles Enhances Intrinsic Piezoelectricity for an Efficient Piezo-Catalytic Sterilization.

Comprehensively understanding the interdependency between the orientated atomic array and intrinsic piezoelectricity in one-dimension (1D) tellurium (Te) crystals will greatly benefit their practical piezo-catalytic applications. Herein, we successfully synthesized the various 1D Te microneedles by precisely orientating the atomic growth orientation by tuning (100)/(110) planes ratios (Te-0.6, Te-0.3, Te-0.4) to reveal the secrets of piezoelectricity. Explicitly, the theoretical simulations and experimental results have solidly validated that the Te-0.6 microneedle grown along the [110] orientation possesses a stronger asymmetric distribution of Te atoms array causing the enhanced dipole moment and in-plane polarization, which boosts a higher transfer and separation efficiency of the electron and hole pairs and a higher piezoelectric potential under the same stress. Additionally, the orientated atomic array along the [110] has p antibonding states with a higher energy level, resulting in a higher CB potential and a broadened band gap. Meanwhile, it also has a much lower barrier toward the valid adsorption of H2O and O2 molecules over other orientations, effectively conducive to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) for the efficient piezo-catalytic sterilization. Therefore, this study not only broadens the fundamental perspectives in understanding the intrinsic mechanism of piezoelectricity in 1D Te crystals but also provides a candidate 1D Te microneedle for practical piezo-catalytic applications.

Single‐Orientation Epitaxy of Quasi‐1D Tellurium Nanowires on M‐Plane Sapphire for Highly Uniform Polarization Sensitive Short‐Wave Infrared Photodetection

AbstractTellurium (Te), an elemental van der Waals semiconductor, has intriguing anisotropic physical properties owing to its inherent quais‐1D crystal structure. Synthesizing ultrathin Te crystal with uniform orientation is important to its large‐scale device applications, but that remains a great challenge. Herein, the nanoscale grooves‐induced unidirectional epitaxy growth of 1D Te nanowires via physical vapor deposition on the annealed m‐plane sapphire is demonstrated. By enhancing the annealing temperature from 1000 to 1300 °C, nanoscale grooves on m‐plane sapphire arising along the [100] direction and gradually distinct, and the corresponding Te nanowires grown on them turns from random to uniform, finally achieving nearly 95% unidirectional Te nanowires. The as‐grown Te nanowires possess high crystallinity with clearly chiral helical chains along the c‐axis direction and reveal thickness‐tunable bandgap with prominent linear‐dichroic. As results, the Te nanowire‐based photodetectors demonstrate a broadband photoresponse from visible (532 nm) to short‐wave infrared (2530 nm), with high responsivity of 327 A W−1 as well as strong and uniform polarization sensitivity (anisotropic ratio = 2.05) to 1550 nm light. The high crystallinity and superior anisotropy of Te nanowires, combined with the orientation‐controlled preparation endows it with great feasibility for constructing chip‐scale multifunctional optoelectronic devices.

Hybrid 1D/2D heterostructure with electronic structure engineering toward high-sensitivity and polarization-dependent photodetector

The widespread application of photodetectors has triggered an urgent need for high-sensitivity and polarization-dependent photodetection. In this field, the two-dimensional (2D) tungsten disulfide (WS2) exhibits intriguing optical and electronic properties, making it an attractive photosensitive material for optoelectronic applications. However, the lack of an effective built-in electric field and photoconductive gain mechanism in 2D WS2 impedes its application in high-performance photodetectors. Herein, we propose a hybrid heterostructure photodetector that contains 1D Te and 2D WS2. In this device, 1D Te induces in-plane strain in 2D WS2, which regulates the electronic structures of local WS2 and gives rise to type-II band alignment in the horizontal direction. Moreover, the vertical heterojunction built of 2D WS2 and 1D Te introduces a high photoconductive gain. Benefiting from these two effects, the transfer of photogenerated carriers is optimized, and the proposed photodetector exhibits high sensitivity (photoresponsivity of ~27.7 A W−1, detectivity of 9.5 × 1012 Jones, and short rise/decay time of 19.3/17.6 ms). In addition, anisotropic photodetection characteristics with a dichroic ratio up to 2.1 are achieved. This hybrid 1D/2D heterostructure overcomes the inherent limitations of each material and realizes novel properties, opening up a new avenue towards constructing multifunctional optoelectronic devices.

Laser-assisted micropyramid patterned PDMS encapsulation of 1D tellurium nanowires on cellulose paper for highly sensitive strain sensor and its photodetection studies

This work demonstrates the fabrication of tellurium-nanowires (Te-NWs)/paper based device encapsulated using laser assisted mircopyramid patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films. Although there are multiple reports published on 1D Te, most of them are limited to establishing its properties and studying its behavior as a sensor and research on the utilization of Te-NWs for physical sensors remain unexplored. Further, reports on p-type photodetectors also remain scarce. The fabricated Te-NWs/paper with micropyramid structured PDMS films encapsulation was used as a strain sensor, and it exhibited considerable improvement (∼60%) in sensitivity compared to smooth PDMS films. The gauge factor of the developed strain sensor was found to be ∼15.3. In addition, fabricated Te-NWs/paper device with contacts was used as a photodetector and it showed photoresponsivity of ∼22.5 mA W−1 and ∼14.5 mA W−1 in visible and NIR regions, respectively. Furthermore, the device exhibited long-term mechanical stability under harsh deformations. Fabricated 1D Te-NWs/paper device was utilized as a strain sensor to monitor the angular movements in the human body and successfully monitored various human motions, including wrist bending, finger knuckle, elbow joint, and knee joint. The successful demonstration of Te-NWs based physical sensors and utilization in broadband photodetectors opens avenues of research for tellurium based flexible and wearable devices.

Study of One Dimensional Hyperbolic Telegraph Equation Via a Hybrid Cubic B-Spline Differential Quadrature Method

Hybrid cubic B-spline differential quadrature method (in brief, HCB-DQM) have been proposed for the study of one space dimensional time dependent partial differential equations. Specially, we have applied the proposed method for 1D telegraph equation (1D TE). The HCB-DQM is based on DQM with hybrid cubic-B-splines as base functions, and so, the 1D TE is reduced to a system of first order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) which is solved via SSP-RK43 scheme. The accurateness and efficiency of the proposed method is tested for four examples of 1D TE via $$L_2$$ and $$L_\infty $$ errors. It is demonstrated that proposed HCB-DQM produces stable solutions for 1D telegraph equation. The evaluated solutions are compared with the exact results. Also, we compare the evaluated results with existing recently published results. It is seen that the produced results are agreed well with the exact solutions. Easy to implementation, economically and straightforwardness is main advantage of HCB-DQM.

Significant second-harmonic generation and bulk photovoltaic effect in trigonal selenium and tellurium chains.

One-dimensional (1D) selenium and tellurium crystalize in helical chainlike structures and thus exhibit fascinating properties. By performing first-principles calculations, we have researched the linear and nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of 1D Se and Te, and find that both systems exhibit pronounced NLO responses. In particular, 1D Se is found to possess a large second-harmonic generation coefficient with the χ value being up to 7 times larger than that of GaN, and is even several times larger than that of the bulk counterpart. On the other hand, 1D Te also produces significant NLO susceptibility χ which exceeds that of bulk GaN by 5 times. Furthermore, 1D Te is shown to possess a prominent linear electro-optic coefficient rxxx(0). In particular, the Te chain exhibits a large shift current response and the maximum is twice as large as the maximal photovoltaic responses obtained from BaTiO3. Therefore, 1D Se and Te may find potential applications in solar energy conversion, electro-optical switches, and so on. Finally, the much stronger NLO effects of 1D Se and Te are attributed to their one-dimensional structures with high anisotropy, strong covalent bonding and lone-pair electrons. These findings will contribute further to experimental studies and the search for excellent materials with large NLO effects.

A high performance self-powered photodetector based on a 1D Te-2D WS2 mixed-dimensional heterostructure.

One-dimensional (1D)–two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdWs) mixed-dimensional heterostructures with advantages of an atomically sharp interface, high quality and good compatibility have attracted tremendous attention in recent years. Herein, a mixed-dimensional vertical heterostructure is constructed by transferring mechanically exfoliated 2D WS2 nanosheets on epitaxially grown 1D tellurium (Te) microwires. According to the theoretical type-II band alignment, the device exhibits a photovoltaic effect and serves as an excellent self-powered photodetector with a maximum open-circuit voltage (Voc) up to ∼0.2 V. Upon 635 nm light illumination, the photoresponsivity, external quantum efficiency and detectivity of the self-powered photodetector (SPPD) are calculated to be 471 mA W−1, 91% and 1.24 × 1012 Jones, respectively. Moreover, the dark current of the SPPD is highly suppressed to the sub-pA level due to the large lateral built-in electric field, which leads to a high Ilight/Idark ratio of 104 with a rise time of 25 ms and decay time of 14.7 ms. The abovementioned properties can be further enhanced under a negative bias of −2 V. In brief, the 1D Te–2D WS2 mixed-dimensional heterostructures have great application potential in high performance photodetectors and photovoltaics.

Parallel Nanoimprint Forming of One-Dimensional Chiral Semiconductor for Strain-Engineered Optical Properties

HighlightsExquisite strain engineering in 1D chiral semiconductor.Facile nanoimprinting induced tensile strain in Te nanowire.Intriguing and tunable optical properties of 1D Te nanowire by strain engineering.

Facile Fabrication of Highly Uniform Tellurium Nanorods for Self‐Powered Flexible Optoelectronics

AbstractNanoscale tellurium (Te) materials are promising for advanced optoelectronics owing to their many intriguing properties. However, the facile fabrication of highly uniform 1D Te nanostructures has been a challenge. Herein, an electrochemical exfoliation method is developed to prepare uniform Te nanorod (NRs), which can form stable and high concentration suspension in organic solvents. The morphology of the Te NRs can be well tuned by the electrochemical exfoliation condition. Flexible photodetectors based on Te NRs show an excellent responsivity of 6.1 A W−1. The detectivity achieves 1.2 × 1011 Jones, which is the highest among Te‐based photodetectors. Moreover, self‐powered photodetectors based on Te NRs are successfully fabricated, which exhibits a responsivity of 3 µA W−1. This new method paves the way for the applications of Te NRs in self‐powered flexible optoelectronics.

1D@0D hybrid dimensional heterojunction-based photonics logical gate and isolator

Optical logic gate and isolator are the key components for the optical packet switching, optical address recognition, optical computing, which will play an important role in the future high-speed and large-capacity all-optical signal-processing technologies. In the investigation of materials science, we found that low-dimensional materials have feasibility and reliability in the development of optical logic gates and isolators in all-optical signal processing technology. We demonstrate that zero-dimensional bismuthene quantum dots (0D Bi QDs) can be developed as sensitizers to enhance the nonlinear optical response of one-dimensional tellurium nanotubes (1D Te NTs), and the 1D@0D Te@Bi QD NTs hybrid dimensional heterojunction is found to possess high stability and a strong Kerr effect. Taking advantage of the strong light-matter interaction, a hybrid dimensional heterojunction-based logical gate is designed to realize the OR function with optical method. Moreover, another nonlinear isolator, which utilizes the Te@Bi QD NTs/SnS2 hybrid structure, is designed to achieve a unidirectional nonlinear optical response based on the strong Kerr nonlinearity. This investigation has enriched the application of SSPM method that can be considered an important step for new materials in all-optical signal processing technologies.

Investigation on Three Dimensional Hybrid Organic–Inorganic β-ZnTe(en)0.5 Flowerlike Structures and Corresponding Mesoporous PbTe Flowerlike Microcrystals

Three dimensional (3D) metal tellurides have a broad range of applications, but their template preparation technology is limited by the preferentially formed one dimensional tellurium materials. Here, the hybrid organic–inorganic 3D β-ZnTe(en)0.5 flowerlike microcrystals, which are synthesized by a simple and reproducible method, are used as templates to prepare 3D mesoporous PbTe flowerlike microcrystals through ion-exchange route. The growth mechanism of β-ZnTe(en)0.5 and mesoporous PbTe flowerlike structures are discussed in detail. Firstly, because the binding capacity of Zn2+ ions with Te2− ions and ethylenediamine (EN) molecules is in preference to Te–Te atoms, 3D β-ZnTe(en)0.5 flowerlike microcrystals are formed instead of 1D Te nanorods. During this process, the amount of EN not only play a key role in the control of crystal morphology, but also influence the crystal structure. Secondly, mesoporous PbTe flowerlike microcrystals are formed since Pb2+ ions incompletely occupied the space created by the loss of EN molecules and Zn2+ ions in orthorhombic β-ZnTe(en)0.5 flowerlike templates.

Epitaxial growth of single tellurium atomic wires on a Cu2Sb surface alloy

One-dimensional (1D) zigzag tellurium (Te) wires on an alloyed Cu2Sb (111) surface are produced and characterized by combining molecular beam epitaxy and high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy, respectively. These 1D Te wires with zigzag shapes exhibit a uniform width and well-defined periodicity grown in registry on a Cu2Sb (111) substrate. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed a remarkable bandgap of 0.3 eV induced by spin–orbit coupling. Interestingly, the resulting Te wires became metallic on the substrate, as confirmed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy and DFT. The present study provides a platform for constructing periodic atomic wires on alloyed surfaces, which may be extended further to integrate them into circuits.

Uniform PdCu coated Te nanowires as efficient catalysts for electrooxidation of ethylene glycol

The renewable alcohol oxidation reaction is critical to conversion and storage of clean energy, but the design and construction of highly efficient catalysts for boosting the electrooxidation reaction, remains a grand challenge. Here, we propose a facile approach for the large-scale generation of uniform PdCuTe nanowires (NWs) by using Te NWs as the template. Impressively, as a robust integrated one-dimensional (1D) anode catalyst, the as-obtained PdCuTe NWs shows high specific/mass activity of 7.9 mA cm−2 and 3872.6 mA mg−1 for the ethylene glycol (EG) oxidation reaction, being 3.4 and 4.2-fold enhancement than commercial Pd/C, respectively. Moreover, the ternary PdCuTe nanowires also display excellent stability with less activity degradation after long-term electrochemical tests. Combining physicochemical characterizations and electrochemical results, we found that the 1D Te NWs template was significant for promoting the electrocatalytic activity of PdCuTe NWs, because such nanowire template was the key, leading to the attachment of active PdCu nanoparticles which successfully exposed abundant active sites and contributed to large promotion of electrocatalytic performances. This work highlights the utilization efficiency improvement via morphology design for the promotion of electrocatalytic performances.

Cd2(Te6O13)][Cd2Cl6] and Cd7Cl8(Te7O17): Novel Tellurium(IV) Oxide Slabs and Unusual Cadmium Chloride Architectures

Initial attempts to prepare new Ln-Cd-Te-O-Cl compounds led to the isolation of two novel cadmium tellurium(IV) oxychlorides with two different types of structures, namely, [Cd(2)(Te(6)O(13))][Cd(2)Cl(6)] and Cd(7)Cl(8)(Te(7)O(17)). Both compounds feature novel polymeric tellurium(IV) oxide anions and unusual cadmium chloride substructures. The structure of [Cd(2)(Te(6)O(13))][Cd(2)Cl(6)] is composed of 1D [Cd(2)Cl(6)](2)(-) double chains and (002) [Cd(2)(Te(6)O(13))](2+) layers. The 1D Te(6)O(13)(2)(-) slab of the [Cd(2)(Te(6)O(13))](2+) layer is formed by TeO(3), TeO(4), and TeO(5) groups via corner- and edge-sharing, and it contains six- and seven-membered tellurium(IV) polyhedral rings. The structure of Cd(7)Cl(8)(Te(7)O(17)) features a 3D network with long-narrow tunnels along the b axis. The two types of structural building blocks are 1D [Te(7)O(17)](6)(-) anions and unusual corrugated [Cd(7)Cl(8)](6+) layers based on "cyclohexane-like" Cd(3)Cl(3) rings.