Low Temperature Step Annealing Synthesis of the Ti2AlN MAX Phase to Fabricate MXene Quantum Dots

Abstract

We present the synthesis of the Ti2AlN MAX phase using two-step annealing at temperatures of 600°C and 1100°C, the lowest synthesis temperatures reported so far. After the successful synthesis of the Ti2AlN MAX phase, two-dimensional Ti2N MXene was prepared through wet chemical etching and further fragmented into light emitting MXene quantum dots (MQDs) with a size of 3.2 nm by hydrothermal method. Our MQDs displayed a 6.9% quantum yield at a 310 nm wavelength of excitation, suggesting promising nanophotonic applications.