Facile synthesis of 1T-MOS2 nanoflowers using hydrothermal method

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is one of the promising 2D materials thanks to its outstanding physicochemical properties and therefore is predicted to play a key role in optoelectronics devices and energy applications. MoS2 exhibits three phases with distinctive crystal structure depending on its stacking order: 1T (metallic), 2H (semiconducting), and 3R (semiconducting). Among all of them, 1T-MoS2 has become the center of interest due to its e.g., high catalytic activity. However, most of the methods to obtain 1T-MoS2 are complex and costly, for example strain engineering, electron beam treatment, and plasmonic hot electron injection. As response, we here demonstrate a facile and cost-efficient hydrothermal route at 200oC to synthesize MoS2 with high content of 1T phase. MoS2-200oC nanoflowers has an average diameter of 2.96 µm with the S/Mo atomic ratio of 1.50 and the band gap of 1.39 eV. It has an additional diffraction peak at 2θ = 9.22o, indicating the transformation of semiconducting 2H into metallic 1T. Higher concentration of 1T phase in MoS2-200oC is also indicated by high intensity of the E1g Raman peak.