TY - JOUR
T1 - Tuning the Work Function of Ti3C2TxMXene by Molecular Doping without Changing its Surface Functional Groups
AU - El-Demellawi, Jehad K.
AU - Mansour, Ahmed E.
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 M.
AU - Mohammed, Omar F.
AU - Alshareef, Husam N.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was financially supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
Publisher Copyright:
© ACS Materials Letters 2022.
PY - 2022/11
Y1 - 2022/11
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 Ti3C2TxMXene 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 Ti3C2Txis 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 Ti3C2TxMXene 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 Ti3C2Txis entirely surface-termination-independent. Such discrete control over the WF renders MXene-based devices with unprecedented operational degrees of freedom.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141714998&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00796
DO - 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00796
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85141714998
SN - 2639-4979
VL - 4
SP - 2480
EP - 2490
JO - ACS Materials Letters
JF - ACS Materials Letters
IS - 12
ER -