Generalized Colloidal Approach for Preparing Epitaxial 1D/2D Heterostructures

1D/2D heterostructures, in particular those thatconsist of a 1D nanorod core and a 2D nanoplate (NPL) shell,enable the combination of the merits and mitigation of thedemerits of distinct dimensionalities into one system, providing anew platform to study their intriguing properties. However, there isstill lack of effective strategies to rationally integrate thecomponents with different dimensionalities together. Here, wereport a general seeded growth method for the construction ofepitaxial 1D/2D heterostructures with a variety of compositionalcombinations, in which ordered 2D NPL arrays are verticallygrown along thec-axis of 1D wurtzite nanomaterials, including II-VI and I-III-VI2semiconductors. The loading densities of NPLs on the 1D nanomaterials are very high, up to 280 piece/mu m. Thesame crystal structure of the grown NPLs and 1D seeds ensures the epitaxial growth relationship between these two materials. It isfound that the secondary 2D growth mode is a kinetic-dominated process, in addition to the effect of the anionic sulfur precursor.The as-prepared 1D/2D CdSe/CdS heterostructures exhibit enhanced activity for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution compared tothat of the single-component CdSe NRs and CdS/CdS homostructures. This work greatly enriches the variety and architecture ofthe available heterostructures and also provides a toolbox for exploring their promising applications.

Automated summary

1D/2D heterostructures allow for the combination of different dimensionalities into one system, but effective strategies for integrating these components are lacking. This study presents a general seeded growth method for constructing epitaxial 1D/2D heterostructures with various compositional combinations, expanding the variety and architecture of available heterostructures and providing a toolbox for exploring their promising applications.