The deposition of noble metals onto two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides is crucial for practical applications, including in catalysis and sensing, yet this process has remained difficult to control. Now, gold and silver have been shown to grow on colloidal transition metal dichalcogenide nanosheets into either atomically thin layers or nanoparticles whose sizes and morphologies depend on the relative strengths of the interfacial noble metal–chalcogen bonds.
- Yifan Sun
- Yuanxi Wang
- Raymond E. Schaak