Raman Spectra of Monolayer, Few-Layer, and Bulk ReSe 2 : An Anisotropic Layered Semiconductor (original) (raw)

Rhenium Dichalcogenides: Layered Semiconductors with Two Vertical Orientations

Nano Letters, 2016

The rhenium and technetium diselenides and disulfides are van der Waals layered semiconductors in some respects similar to more well-known transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) such as molybdenum sulfide. However, their symmetry is lower, consisting only of an inversion center, so that turning a layer upside-down (that is, applying a C 2 rotation about an in-plane axis) is not a symmetry operation, but reverses the sign of the angle between the two nonequivalent in-plane crystallographic axes. A given layer thus can be placed on a substrate in two symmetrically nonequivalent (but energetically similar) ways. This has consequences for the exploitation of the anisotropic properties of these materials in TMD heterostructures and is expected to lead to a new source of domain structure in large-area layer growth. We produced fewlayer ReS 2 and ReSe 2 samples with controlled "up" or "down" orientations by micromechanical cleavage and we show how polarized Raman microscopy can be used to distinguish these two orientations, thus establishing Raman as an essential tool for the characterization of large-area layers.

In-Plane Anisotropy in Mono- and Few-Layer ReS2 Probed by Raman Spectroscopy and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

Nano letters, 2015

Rhenium disulfide (ReS2) is a semiconducting layered transition metal dichalcogenide that exhibits a stable distorted 1T phase. The reduced symmetry of this system leads to in-plane anisotropy in various material properties. Here, we demonstrate the strong anisotropy in the Raman scattering response for linearly polarized excitation. Polarized Raman scattering is shown to permit a determination of the crystallographic orientation of ReS2 through comparison with direct structural analysis by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Analysis of the frequency difference of appropriate Raman modes is also shown to provide a means of precisely determining layer thickness up to four layers.

New First Order Raman-active Modes in Few Layered Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Scientific Reports, 2014

Although the main Raman features of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides are well known for the monolayer and bulk, there are important differences exhibited by few layered systems which have not been fully addressed. WSe 2 samples were synthesized and ab-initio calculations carried out. We calculated phonon dispersions and Raman-active modes in layered systems: WSe 2 , MoSe 2 , WS 2 and MoS 2 ranging from monolayers to five-layers and the bulk. First, we confirmed that as the number of layers increase, the E9, E0 and E 2g modes shift to lower frequencies, and the A9 1 and A 1g modes shift to higher frequencies. Second, new high frequency first order A9 1 and A 1g modes appear, explaining recently reported experimental data for WSe 2 , MoSe 2 and MoS 2 . Third, splitting of modes around A9 1 and A 1g is found which explains those observed in MoSe 2 . Finally, exterior and interior layers possess different vibrational frequencies. Therefore, it is now possible to precisely identify few-layered STMD.

Layer parity dependent Raman-active modes and crystal symmetry in ReS2

Physical Review B

ReS 2 , a group VII transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), bears immense prospect in optoelectronic, thermoelectric, catalytic, and energy storage applications. Its distorted structure and significant in-plane anisotropy introduce extra degree of freedom but, on the other hand, make it challenging to determine the absolute characteristics of the material. Here, through experimental and theoretical analysis, we present additional phonon modes in the Raman spectrum of layered ReS 2 which, in literature, are regarded as ambiguous modes arising due to either double resonance or defects. However, we demonstrate that these additional phonon modes arise from the crystal symmetry. This report proves the most followed notion of a layer-independent monolayer (ML)-based unit cell of ReS 2 to be misleading. We further demonstrate that the observed additional phonon modes are driven by unique layer-dependent variations in the crystal symmetry. Moreover, layer-parity-dependent splitting of E 1 g mode and inversion symmetry breaking are discussed in detail. Such layer-dependent features have remained largely ignored in the literature. The results presented here may open new avenues for the application of this material and resolve several contradictions in its properties including the significance of stacking order, layer-dependent crystal symmetry, and shifting of Raman modes.

Strain Engineering and Raman Spectroscopy of Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Chemistry of Materials

We describe a facile technique based on polymer encapsulation to apply several percent controllable strains to monolayer and few-layer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (TMDs). We use this technique to study the lattice response to strain via polarized Raman spectroscopy in monolayer WSe2 and WS2. The application of strain causes mode-dependent redshifts, with larger shift rates observed for in-plane modes. We observe a splitting of the degeneracy of the in-plane ′ modes in both materials and measure the Grüneisen parameters. At large strain, we observe that the reduction of crystal symmetry can lead to a change in the polarization response of the ′ mode in WS2. While both WSe2 and WS2 exhibit similar qualitative changes in the phonon structure with strain, we observe much larger changes in mode positions and intensities with strain in WS2. These differences can be explained simply by the degree of iconicity of the metal-chalcogen bond.

Monolayer behaviour in bulk ReS2 due to electronic and vibrational decoupling

Semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides consist of monolayers held together by weak forces where the layers are electronically and vibrationally coupled. Isolated monolayers show changes in electronic structure and lattice vibration energies, including a transition from indirect to direct bandgap. Here we present a new member of the family, rhenium disulphide (ReS 2 ), where such variation is absent and bulk behaves as electronically and vibrationally decoupled monolayers stacked together. From bulk to monolayers, ReS 2 remains direct bandgap and its Raman spectrum shows no dependence on the number of layers. Interlayer decoupling is further demonstrated by the insensitivity of the optical absorption and Raman spectrum to interlayer distance modulated by hydrostatic pressure. Theoretical calculations attribute the decoupling to Peierls distortion of the 1T structure of ReS 2 , which prevents ordered stacking and minimizes the interlayer overlap of wavefunctions. Such vanishing interlayer coupling enables probing of two-dimensional-like systems without the need for monolayers.

Group theory analysis of phonons in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides

Physical Review B, 2014

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have emerged as a new two dimensional materials field since the monolayer and few-layer limits show different properties when compared to each other and to their respective bulk materials. For example, in some cases when the bulk material is exfoliated down to a monolayer, an indirect-to-direct band gap in the visible range is observed. The number of layers N (N even or odd) drives changes in space group symmetry that are reflected in the optical properties. The understanding of the space group symmetry as a function of the number of layers is therefore important for the correct interpretation of the experimental data. Here we present a thorough group theory study of the symmetry aspects relevant to optical and spectroscopic analysis, for the most common polytypes of TMDCs, i.e. 2Ha, 2Hc and 1T , as a function of the number of layers. Real space symmetries, the group of the wave vectors, the relevance of inversion symmetry, irreducible representations of the vibrational modes, optical selection rules and Raman tensors are discussed.

Strong Enhancement of Raman Scattering from a Bulk-Inactive Vibrational Mode in Few-Layer MoTe2

ACS Nano, 2014

Two-dimensional layered crystals could show phonon properties that are markedly distinct from those of their bulk counterparts, because of the loss of periodicities along the c-axis directions. Here we investigate the phonon properties of bulk and atomically thin R-MoTe 2 using Raman spectroscopy. The Raman spectrum of R-MoTe 2 shows a prominent peak of the in-plane E 1 2g mode, with its frequency upshifting with decreasing thickness down to the atomic scale, similar to other dichalcogenides. Furthermore, we find large enhancement of the Raman scattering from the out-of-plane B 1 2g mode in the atomically thin layers. The B 1 2g mode is Raman inactive in the bulk, but is observed to become active in the few-layer films. The intensity ratio of the B 1 2g to E 1 2g peaks evolves significantly with decreasing thickness, in contrast with other dichalcogenides. Our observations point to strong effects of dimensionality on the phonon properties of MoTe 2 .

Resonance effects in the Raman scattering of monolayer and few-layerMoSe2

Physical Review B, 2016

Using resonant Raman scattering spectroscopy with 25 different laser lines, we describe the Raman scattering spectra of mono-and multi-layers 2H-molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2) as well as the different resonances affecting the most pronounced features. For high-energy phonons, both A-and E-symmetry type phonons present resonances with A and B excitons of MoSe2 together with a marked increase of intensity when exciting at higher energy, close to the C exciton energy. We observe symmetry dependent exciton-phonon coupling affecting mainly the low-energy rigid layer phonon modes. The shear mode for multilayer displays a pronounced resonance with the C exciton while the breathing mode has an intensity that grows with the excitation laser energy, indicating a resonance with electronic excitations at energies higher than that of the C exciton.