Our research spans the discovery and understanding of new 2D materials, including Chemical Vapor deposition (CVD) grown various transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), elemental 2D materials, etc. We’re working to comprehend the fundamental science behind the structures, synthesis, processing, characterizations, and applications of these materials. We are particularly interested in investigating not only the electronic and optical properties of these materials but also their application towards practical applications, specifically energy conversion. Our experiments are oriented toward investigating how the engineering of the basal plane enhances the catalytic activity, mainly by introducing wrinkles or ripples (strain), vacancy cluster holes, ion implantation or amorphization of materials, making heterostructures, etc.

In the past, our group has demonstrated CVD growth of spiral and pyramid-like few-layer WS2 by controlling the growth conditions and showing that these nanostructures exhibit interesting optical properties. Unique nano-architectural morphologies of WS2 are observed by controlling the precursors, thereby varying the initial nucleation rates in CVD growth. The role of dislocation lines and edge sites of these spiral structures on their hydrogen evolution catalytic properties was explored. In addition, we demonstrated, for the first time, a seed-assisted chemical vapor transport growth of ultra-thin triangular flakes of highly crystalline trigonal selenium (t-Se) oriented in the (0001) direction with a lateral size > 30 µm.