Synthesis and Analysis of TiS3 Nanoribbons
Authors: Kuo Li-Yu , Wang Chiu-yen 
Published: February 2020

Nowadays ,there are a variety of nanoscale materials that scientists around the whole world try to find out specific nanoscale materials which they can truly apply to the industry and the academic.community. Therefore, finding cheap, non-toxic and accessible materials which can actually apply to the industry is being my core target. One-dimensional materials including nanowires, nanobelts, nanoribbons, nanotubes and nanorods that have been attracting a great research in the last few years. These materials have been demonstrated to exhibit superior electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties. One-dimensional materials also become the focus of intensive research due to their unique applications in mesoscopic physics and fabrication of nanoscale devices. One-dimensional nanostructures provide convenient system to investigate the dependence of electrical and thermal transport or mechanical properties on dimensionality and size reduction. Furthermore, they are also play an important role as both interconnects and functional units in fabricating electronic, optoelectronic, electrochemical and electromechanical devices with nanoscale dimensions. Metal sulfides exhibit very interesting properties in the fields of energy conversion and storage. Concerning energy conversion, many of them (FeS2, TiS3, MoS2…) show suitable band gap energy and optical properties to be used in photovoltaic systems and photo-electrochemical hydrogen generation. Furthermore, they exhibit 2D-layered structures with the possibility to develop peculiar nano-morphologies such as nanotubes, nanoplates and nanoribbons These materials can be used as nanotransistors because of their optoelectronic properties as well as potential hydrogen stores. Among all metal sulfides, TiS3 is the transition metal trichal-cogenides and quasi-one dimensional semiconductor with outstanding electronic, optoelectronic properties and easy to get. The direct optical band gap of ≈1 eV, high sensitivity and ultrahigh optical responsivities (≈3000 A/W) make them an ideal material for optoelectronic applications. Moreover, TiS3 has large surface area owing to its considerable (001) plane that TiS3 can be applied to the energy storage or hydrogen storage1~2.

In this work, titanium based sulfides TiS3 one-dimensional nanostructures (nanoribbons) have been synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method in the two-zone heating furnace. Ti and S powder as the precursors of CVD method, which were put into quartz tube and sealed by spray gun. First of all, Ti and S powders were placed between first zone furnace and second zone furnace. Second, formation of sulfides were produced by heating the quartz tube up to 700 ºC. for 40 minutes and held 20 minutes at setting temperature in vacuum. The quartz tube was cooled to 580 ºC for 2 days. The morphology, component, grain size, thickness, length and crystal structure of Ti-sulfides were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and raman spectrum respectively. According to the analyses, X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of titanium sulfureted of TiS3 sample at room temperature shows the strongest peak of preferential orientation on the (001) plane but still exhibits strong peak of S of preferential orientation on the (222) plane and strong peak of TiS2 of preferential orientation on the (001) plane. Beyond expectation, there are a lot of TiS2 exhibited which will be the significant influence of the purity of TiS3 nanoribbons. According to literatures, this accident occurs since the decomposition of TiS3 nearly below the eutectic point. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of TiS3 samples with 100 μm in length, 0.5~2 μm in width and 100~200 nm in thickness are observed for TiS3. Furthermore, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) for the synthetized sample that the composition is uniform in agreement with the formation of single phase. The S/Ti ratio of TiS3 ratio is 2.96. Finally , the raman spectrum of every peak of TiS3 sample completely corresponds to the correct position. After doing these analyses, TiS3 nanoribbons are doing analyses of optical and electrical properties and apply to the lithium batteries.

Reference:

G. Gorlova, V.Ya. Pokrovskii, S.G. Zybtsev, A.N. Titov and V.N. Timofeev. Features of the Conductivity of the Quasi One Dimensional Compound TiS3 Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, 2010, 111, 298–303.

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