Thickness-Tunable Synthesis of Ultrathin Type-II Dirac Semimetal PtTe₂ Single Crystals and Their Thickness-Dependent Electronic Properties

The recent discovery of topological semimetals has stimulated extensive research interest due to their unique electronic properties and novel transport properties related to a chiral anomaly. However, the studies to date are largely limited to bulk crystals and exfoliated flakes. Here, we report the controllable synthesis of ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) platinum telluride (PtTe₂) nanosheets with tunable thickness and investigate the thickness-dependent electronic properties. We show that PtTe₂ nanosheets can be readily grown, using a chemical vapor deposition approach, with a hexagonal or triangular geometry and a lateral dimension of up to 80 μm, and the thickness of the nanosheets can be systematically tailored from over 20 to 1.8 nm by reducing the growth temperature or increasing the flow rate of the carrier gas. X-ray-diffraction, transmission-electron microscopy, and electron-diffraction studies confirm that the resulting 2D nanosheets are high-quality single crystals. Raman spectroscopic studies show characteristics <i>E</i>_g and <i>A</i>_1g vibration modes at ∼109 and ∼155 cm^–1, with a systematic red shift with increasing nanosheet thickness. Electrical transport studies show the 2D PtTe₂ nanosheets display an excellent conductivity up to 2.5 × 10⁶ S m^–1 and show strong thickness-tunable electrical properties, with both the conductivity and its temperature dependence varying considerably with the thickness. Moreover, 2D PtTe₂ nanosheets show an extraordinary breakdown current density up to 5.7 × 10⁷ A/cm², the highest breakdown current density achieved in 2D metallic transition-metal dichalcogenides to date