Superlubricity of epitaxial monolayer WS2 on graphene
Holger Büch1,
Antonio Rossi1,2,
Stiven Forti1,
Domenica Convertino1,2,
Valentina Tozzini2 &
Camilla Coletti1,3
Nano Research volume 11, pages5946–5956(2018)Cite this article
An erratum to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2173-y.
This article has been updated
We report the superlubric sliding of monolayer tungsten disulfide (WS2) on epitaxial graphene (EG) grown on silicon carbide (SiC). Single-crystalline WS2 flakes with lateral size of hundreds of nanometers are obtained via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on EG. Microscopic and diffraction analyses indicate that the WS2/EG stack is predominantly aligned with zero azimuthal rotation. The present experiments show that, when perturbed by a scanning probe microscopy (SPM) tip, the WS2 flakes are prone to slide over the graphene surfaces at room temperature. Atomistic force field-based molecular dynamics simulations indicate that, through local physical deformation of the WS2 flake, the scanning tip releases enough energy to the flake to overcome the motion activation barrier and trigger an ultralow-friction rototranslational displacement, that is superlubric. Experimental observations show that, after sliding, the WS2 flakes come to rest with a rotation of nπ/3 with respect to graphene. Moreover, atomically resolved measurements show that the interface is atomically sharp and the WS2 lattice is strain-free. These results help to shed light on nanotribological phenomena in van der Waals (vdW) heterostacks, and suggest that the applicative potential of the WS2/graphene heterostructure can be extended by novel mechanical prospects.
The article Superlubricity of epitaxial monolayer WS<Subscript>2</Subscript> on graphene, written by Holger Büch, Antonio Rossi, Stiven Forti, Domenica Convertino, Valentina Tozzini, and Camilla Coletti, was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on June 18th 2018 without open access. With the author(s)' decision to opt for Open Choice the copyright of the article changed in August 2018 to © The Author(s) 2018 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (<ExternalRef><RefSource>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</RefSource><RefTarget Address="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" TargetType="URL"/></ExternalRef>), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The original article has been corrected.
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We wish to thank Professor Annalisa Fasolino for useful discussions and suggestions. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement Nos. 696656 – GrapheneCore1 and 785219 – GrapheneCore2.
Center for Nanotechnology Innovation @NEST, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Piazza S. Silvestro 12, 56127, Pisa, Italy
Holger Büch
, Antonio Rossi
, Stiven Forti
, Domenica Convertino
& Camilla Coletti
NEST, Istituto Nanoscienze – CNR and Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza San Silvestro 12, 56127, Pisa, Italy
& Valentina Tozzini
Graphene Labs, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163, Genova, Italy
Camilla Coletti
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Correspondence to Camilla Coletti.
The original version of this article was revised to add the missing Open Access designation.
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Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://doi.org/creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
Büch, H., Rossi, A., Forti, S. et al. Superlubricity of epitaxial monolayer WS2 on graphene. Nano Res. 11, 5946–5956 (2018) doi:10.1007/s12274-018-2108-7
Issue Date: November 2018
superlubricity
tungsten disulfide
scanning tunneling
microscopy (STM)
two-dimensional (2D) materials
nanomechanical