Selective synthesis of pure cobalt disulfide on reduced graphene oxide sheets and its high electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction

We synthesized single-phase CoS2 on a large scale by adding graphene oxide of sufficient quantity via the hydrothermal method using cobalt acetate and thioacetamide as precursors; this produced the hybrid of CoS2 with reduced graphene oxide which exhibited high electrocatalytic activity in the hydrogen evolution reaction.ope

Magnetochiral Tunneling in Paramagnetic Co1/3_{1/3}NbS2_2

Electric currents have the intriguing ability to induce magnetization in nonmagnetic crystals with sufficiently low crystallographic symmetry. Some associated phenomena include the non-linear anomalous Hall effect in polar crystals and the nonreciprocal directional dichroism in chiral crystals when magnetic fields are applied. In this work, we demonstrate that the same underlying physics is also manifested in the electronic tunneling process between the surface of a nonmagnetic chiral material and a magnetized scanning probe. In the paramagnetic but chiral metallic compound Co$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$, the magnetization induced by the tunneling current is shown to become detectable by its coupling to the magnetization of the tip itself. This results in a contrast across different chiral domains, achieving atomic-scale spatial resolution of structural chirality. To support the proposed mechanism, we used first-principles theory to compute the chirality-dependent current-induced magnetization and Berry curvature in the bulk of the material. Our demonstration of this magnetochiral tunneling effect opens up a new avenue for investigating atomic-scale variations in the local crystallographic symmetry and electronic structure across the structural domain boundaries of low-symmetry nonmagnetic crystals.Comment: 4 figure

Prevention of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Photodegradation by Encapsulation with h-BN Layers

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have recently received increasing attention because of their potential applications in semiconducting and optoelectronic devices exhibiting large optical absorptions in the visible range. However, some studies have reported that the grain boundaries of TMDs can be easily degraded by the presence of oxygen in water and by UV irradiation, ozone, and heating under ambient conditions. We herein demonstrate the photodegradation of WSe2 and MoSe2 by laser exposure (532 nm) and the subsequent prevention of this photodegradation by encapsulation with hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) layers. The photodegradation was monitored by variation in peak intensities in the Raman and photoluminescence spectra. The rapid photodegradation of WSe2 under air occurred at a laser power of >0.5 mW and was not observed to any extent at <= 0.1 mW. However, in the presence of a water droplet, the photodegradation of WSe2 was accelerated and took place even at 0.1 mW. We examined the encapsulation of WSe2 with h-BN and found that this prevented photodegradation. However, a single layer of h-BN was not sufficient to fully prevent this photodegradation, and so a triple layer of h-BN was employed. We also demonstrated that the photodegradation of MoSe2 was prevented by encapsulation with h-BN layers. On the basis of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning photoemission microscopy data, we determined that this degradation was caused by the photoinduced oxidation of TMDs. These results can be used to develop a general strategy for improving the stability of 2D materials in practical applications.close0