Morphology-controlled green synthesis of tellurium nanostructures and applications of Te/MXene hybrid structures

Abstract

Tellurium (Te), a striking elemental nanomaterial, demonstrated anisotropic physical properties owing to its unique chiral-chain van der Waals structure. Here, morphology-controlled Te nanostructures are synthesized by a viable and eco-friendly solution process, realizing the formation of high-quality two-dimensional (2D) tellurene and one-dimensional (1D) Te nanostructures with controlled morphologies, including nanotubes, nanowires, and nanocables. A reasonable growth mechanism was derived to explain the morphology transformation. Moreover, the two-dimensional material MXene (Ti3C2Tx) was introduced to fabricate transparent conductive electrodes based on Te/MXene hybrid structures, in which low sheet resistance (156 Ω sq−1) and high transmittance (70%) were obtained.