Journal
NANO LETTERS
Volume 19, Issue 5, Pages 3327-3335Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b00972
Keywords
Ultrathin alpha-Mo2C flakes; scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy; layer stacking; structural defects; superconductivity
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [11574095, 51325205, 51290273, 51802314]
- SYNL-T.S. K Research Fellowship
- Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB30000000]
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Materials can exhibit exotic properties when they approach the two-dimensional (2D) limit. Because of promising applications in catalysis and energy storage, 2D transition-metal carbides (TMCs) have attracted considerable attention in recent years. Among these TMCs, ultrathin crystalline alpha-Mo2C flakes have been fabricated by chemical vapor deposition on Cu/Mo bilayer foils, and their 2D superconducting property was revealed by transport measurements. Herein, we studied the ultrathin alpha-Mo2C flakes by atomic-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S). Strain-related structural modulation and the coexistence of different layer-stacking modes are observed on the Mo-terminated surface of alpha-Mo2C flakes as well as various lattice defects. Furthermore, an enhanced superconductivity with shorter correlation length was observed by STS technique, and such superconductivity is very robust despite the appearance of the defects. A mechanism of superconducting enhancement is proposed based on the strain-induced strong coupling and the increased disordering originated from lattice defects. Our results provide a comprehensive understanding of the correlations between atomic structure, defects, and enhanced superconductivity of this emerging 2D material.
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