Resolving few-layer antimonene/graphene heterostructures

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) antimony (Sb, “antimonene”) is of interest in electronics and batteries. Sb however exhibits a large allotropic structural diversity, which is also influenced by its support. Thus, Sb heterostructure formation is key in 2D Sb integration. Particularly, 2D Sb/graphene interfaces are important. We thus study here few-layered 2D Sb/graphene heterostructures with atomic resolution (scanning) transmission electron microscopy. We find two Sb morphologies to coexist: first, a 2D morphology of layered β-Sb with β-Sb(001)||graphene(001) texture. Second, one-dimensional Sb nanowires which can be matched to β-Sb[2-21]⊥graphene(001) and are closely related to cubic Sb(001)||graphene(001). Importantly, both Sb morphologies show rotational van-der-Waals epitaxy with graphene. Both are resilient against oxidation, although superficial Sb-oxide formation merits consideration, including epitaxial Sb2O3(111)/β-Sb(001) heterostructures. Exact Sb growth behavior depends on processing and substrate properties including, notably, the support underneath the graphene. Our work elucidates the rich phase and epitaxy landscape in 2D Sb and 2D Sb/graphene heterostructures.

Thickness-Dependent Crystallization of Ultrathin Antimony Thin Films for Monatomic Multilevel Reflectance and Phase Change Memory Designs

“…Indeed, in crystalline Sb, such Peierls distortion occurs, leading to the rhombohedral distortion of the simple cubic structure and to dimerization, i.e. , bilayer formation . Our current ongoing work on the growth and film structure shows that thin crystalline Sb films tend to be highly textured, where all domains have their c -axis out of plane.…”

“…Indeed, in crystalline Sb, such Peierls distortion occurs, leading to the rhombohedral distortion of the simple cubic structure and to dimerization, i.e., bilayer formation. 24 Our current ongoing work on the growth and film structure shows that thin crystalline Sb films tend to be highly textured, where all domains have their c-axis out of plane. Now, what could be the reason that the thinnest crystalline Sb films clearly deviate from the thicker crystalline films and are close to the amorphous ones?…”

Faceted Antimony Particles with Interiors Reinforced with Reduced Graphene Oxide as High-Performance Anode Material for Sodium-Ion Batteries

“…From a fundamental perspective, the development of such “near-ideal” composite architecture pertaining to rGO sheets reinforcing the interiors of faceted Sb particles indicates the involvement of heterogeneous nucleation/growth mechanism, where the rGO flakes/sheets act as the sites for preferential nucleation/growth of metallic Sb all around the flakes. The possibility of epitaxial growth of Sb on graphene sheets, albeit in a totally different context and with different forms of the materials, has been revealed in ref .…”

Antimonene: a tuneable post-graphene material for advanced applications in optoelectronics, catalysis, energy and biomedicine

“…This includes thickness driven phase transitions and substrate-layer stability dependence. 82,83 This rich allotropic dynamism generates a wide number of possible antimonene structures with unique properties that can be exploited specifically to meet the requirements of each application.…”