TY - JOUR
T1 - Tuning the Work Function of Ti3C2Tx MXene by Molecular Doping without Changing its Surface Functional Groups
AU - El Demellawi, Jehad K.
AU - Mansour, Ahmed
AU - El-Zohry, Ahmed M.
AU - Hedhili, Mohamed N.
AU - Yin, Jun
AU - Emwas, Abdul-Hamid M.
AU - Maity, Partha
AU - Xu, Xiangming
AU - Bakr, Osman
AU - Mohammed, Omar F.
AU - Alshareef, Husam N.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2022-11-15
Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). We thank Dr. Khabiboulakh Katsiev for his help with Kelvin Probe measurements (not discussed here), Khadija Bibi for her help formatting the references list, and Dr. Yunpei Zhu, Dr. Hyunho Kim, and Dr. Mrinal Hota for enriching comments and suggestions.
PY - 2022/11/7
Y1 - 2022/11/7
N2 - Owing to their impressive electronic/optoelectronic properties, MXenes have attracted significant attention among the 2D materials research community. Their work function (WF) tunability, in particular, has permitted efficient interfacial band alignment engineering in several device applications. However, like most of their properties, the WF of MXenes highly depends on their surface terminations, making it hard to individually modify the WF without compromising other fundamental properties, which hinders the exploitation of MXenes to their full potential. Herein, we introduce a surface-termination-independent method to tune the WF of Ti3C2Tx MXene through molecular doping. The achieved stepwise 500-meV increase in WF, in ∼120-meV increments, is induced by subsurface electron depletion from Ti3C2Tx, with no effect on its other key properties. Utilizing electron paramagnetic resonance and ultrafast laser spectroscopy, we reveal that tuning the WF of Ti3C2Tx is entirely surface-termination-independent. Such discrete control over the WF renders MXene-based devices with unprecedented operational degrees of freedom.
AB - Owing to their impressive electronic/optoelectronic properties, MXenes have attracted significant attention among the 2D materials research community. Their work function (WF) tunability, in particular, has permitted efficient interfacial band alignment engineering in several device applications. However, like most of their properties, the WF of MXenes highly depends on their surface terminations, making it hard to individually modify the WF without compromising other fundamental properties, which hinders the exploitation of MXenes to their full potential. Herein, we introduce a surface-termination-independent method to tune the WF of Ti3C2Tx MXene through molecular doping. The achieved stepwise 500-meV increase in WF, in ∼120-meV increments, is induced by subsurface electron depletion from Ti3C2Tx, with no effect on its other key properties. Utilizing electron paramagnetic resonance and ultrafast laser spectroscopy, we reveal that tuning the WF of Ti3C2Tx is entirely surface-termination-independent. Such discrete control over the WF renders MXene-based devices with unprecedented operational degrees of freedom.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/685674
UR - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00796
U2 - 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00796
DO - 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00796
M3 - Article
SN - 2639-4979
SP - 2480
EP - 2490
JO - ACS Materials Letters
JF - ACS Materials Letters
ER -