Ultrathin rhodium nanosheets

• Published in: Nature Communications (ISSN: 2041-1723), vol. 5
• London: Nature Publishing Group, 2014

Despite significant advances in the fabrication and applications of graphene-like materials, it remains a challenge to prepare single-layered metallic materials, which have great potential applications in physics, chemistry and material science. Here we report the fabrication of poly(vinylpyrrolidone)-supported single-layered rhodium nanosheets using a facile solvothermal method. Atomic force microscope shows that the thickness of a rhodium nanosheet is <4 angstrom. Electron diffraction and X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements suggest that the rhodium nanosheets are composed of planar single-atom-layered sheets of rhodium. Density functional theory studies reveal that the single-layered Rh nanosheet involves a delta-bonding framework, which stabilizes the single-layered structure together with the poly(vinylpyrrolidone) ligands. The poly(vinylpyrrolidone)-supported single-layered rhodium nanosheet represents a class of metallic two-dimensional structures that might inspire further fundamental advances in physics, chemistry and material science.

Reference

• EPFL-ARTICLE-198132
• doi:10.1038/ncomms4093
• View record in Web of Science

Record created on 2014-04-02, modified on 2017-05-12