Abstract
2D transition metal nitrides (TMNs) have attracted significant attention due to their magnetic, electrical, and chemical properties at atomic thickness. However, the synthesis of 2D TMNs is still challenging, due to their strong isotropic metal-nitrogen bonding networks. Here, we report a universal synthesis of non-layered 2D TMN family by using corresponding metastable metal chlorides as transient templates. This approach takes advantage of the layered structures and low conversion energy barriers of transition metal chlorides (TMCls) to grow 2D TMNs. Fifteen types of 2D TMNs and their alloys were synthesized, demonstrating the versatility of this method. The 2D TMN family exhibits tunable magnetic characteristics ranging from antiferromagnet to hard magnet, which can be modulated by their composition. This work overcomes previous synthesis limitations, thus offering a pathway to explore fundamental properties of 2D TMNs and accelerate their applications.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The Source Data underlying the figures of this study are available with the paper. All raw data generated during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.
References
Yamanaka, S., Hotehama, K. -i & Kawaji, H. Superconductivity at 25.5 K in Electron-doped Layered Hafnium Nitride. Nature 392, 580–582 (1998).
Sun, W. et al. A Map of The Inorganic Ternary Metal Nitrides. Nat. Mater. 18, 732–739 (2019).
Hong, Y.-L. et al. Chemical Vapor Deposition of Layered Two-dimensional MoSi2N4 Materials. Science 369, 670–674 (2020).
VahidMohammadi, A., Rosen, J. & Gogotsi, Y. The World of Two-Dimensional Carbides and Nitrides (MXenes). Science 372, 1242–1247 (2021).
Kumar, H. et al. Tunable Magnetism and Transport Properties in Nitride MXenes. ACS Nano. 11, 7648–7655 (2017).
Wang, H. et al. Elastic Properties of 2D Ultrathin Tungsten Nitride Crystals Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition. Adv. Funct. Mater. 29, 1902663 (2019).
He, L. et al. Growth of 2D Cr2O3–CrN Mosaic Heterostructures with Tunable Room-Temperature Ferromagnetism. Adv. Mater. 36, 2304946 (2024).
Hantanasirisakul, K. & Gogotsi, Y. Electronic and Optical Properties of 2D Transition Metal Carbides and Nitrides (MXenes). Adv. Mater. 30, 1804779 (2018).
Zhao, L. et al. Universal Salt-assisted Assembly of MXene From Suspension on Polymer Substrates. Nat. Commun. 15, 10027 (2024).
Jin, H. et al. Single-Crystal Nitrogen-Rich Two-Dimensional Mo5N6 Nanosheets for Efficient and Stable Seawater Splitting. ACS Nano 12, 12761–12769 (2018).
Djire, A. et al. Basal Plane Hydrogen Evolution Activity from Mixed Metal Nitride MXenes Measured by Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy. Adv. Funct. Mater. 30, 2001136 (2020).
Yu, L. et al. Non-noble Metal-nitride Based Electrocatalysts for High-performance Alkaline Seawater Electrolysis. Nat. Commun. 10, 5106 (2019).
Zeng, R. et al. Origins of Enhanced Oxygen Reduction Activity of Transition Metal Nitrides. Nat. Mater. 23, 1695–1703 (2024).
Fang, C., Sluiter, M., Van Huis, M. & Zandbergen, H. Structural and Magnetic Properties of NiCx and NiNx (x= 0 to 1/3) Solid Solutions from First-Principles Calculations. Phys. Rev. B. 86, 134114 (2012).
Khazaei, M. et al. Novel Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Carbides and Nitrides. Adv. Funct. Mater. 23, 2185–2192 (2012).
Frey, N. C., Kumar, H., Anasori, B., Gogotsi, Y. & Shenoy, V. B. Tuning Noncollinear Spin Structure and Anisotropy in Ferromagnetic Nitride MXenes. ACS Nano. 12, 6319–6325 (2018).
Soundiraraju, B. & George, B. K. Two-Dimensional Titanium Nitride (Ti2N) MXene: Synthesis, Characterization, and Potential Application as Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrate. ACS Nano 11, 8892–8900 (2017).
Jin, Q. et al. Strain-Mediated High Conductivity in Ultrathin Antiferromagnetic Metallic Nitrides. Adv. Mater. 33, 2005920 (2021).
Jin, Q. et al. Structural Twinning-Induced Insulating Phase in CrN (111) Films. Phys. Rev. Mater. 5, 023604 (2021).
Xu, H. et al. Magnetically Tunable and Stable Deep-ultraviolet Birefringent Optics Using Two-dimensional Hexagonal Boron Nitride. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 1091–1096 (2022).
Korobenko, A. et al. High-harmonic Generation in Metallic Titanium Nitride. Nat. Commun. 12, 4981 (2021).
Chen, J. G. Carbide and Nitride Overlayers on Early Transition Metal Surfaces Preparation Characterization and Reactivities Chemical Reviews. Chem. Rev. 96, 1477–1498 (1996).
Neckel, A. Recent Investigations on The Electronic Structure of The Fourth and Fifth Group Transition Metal Monocarbides, Mononitrides, and Monoxides. Int. J. Quantum Chem. 23, 1317–1353 (2004).
Calais, J.-L. Band Structure of Transition Metal Compounds. Adv. Phys. 26, 847–885 (2006).
Li, S. et al. Aged-Precursor-Assisted Growth of Ferrimagnetic 2D Cr9Se13 with Anomalous Elasticity. Adv. Funct. Mater. 34, 2403453 (2024).
Zhang, P. et al. Flux-assisted Growth of Atomically Thin Materials. Nat. Synth. 1, 864–872 (2022).
Van Waeyenberge, B. Bridging The Gap. Nat. Mater. 18, 657–657 (2019).
Guan, H. et al. General Molten-salt Route to Three-Dimensional Porous Transition Metal Nitrides As Sensitive and Stable Raman Substrates. Nat. Commun. 12, 1376 (2021).
Que, H. et al. Synthesis of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Phosphorous Chalcogenides and Their High-entropy Alloys. Nat. Synth. 4, 582–591 (2025).
Urbankowski, P. et al. Synthesis of Two-Dimensional Titanium Nitride Ti4N3 (MXene). Nanoscale 8, 11385–11391 (2016).
Naguib, M., Barsoum, M. W. & Gogotsi, Y. Ten Years of Progress in the Synthesis and Development of MXenes. Adv. Mater. 33, 2103393 (2021).
Xiao, X. et al. Salt-Templated Synthesis of 2D Metallic MoN and Other Nitrides. ACS Nano. 11, 2180–2186 (2017).
Xiao, X. et al. Two-Dimensional Arrays of Transition Metal Nitride Nanocrystals. Adv. Mater. 31, 1902393 (2019).
Urbankowski, P. et al. 2D Molybdenum and Vanadium Nitrides Synthesized by Ammoniation of 2D Transition Metal Carbides (MXenes). Nanoscale 9, 17722–17730 (2017).
Cao, J. et al. Realization of 2D Crystalline Metal Nitrides via Selective Atomic Substitution. Sci. Adv. 6, eaax8784 (2020).
Wang, W. et al. Solvent-free Fabrication of Ultrathin Two-dimensional Metal Oxides/Sulfides in a Fixed Interlayer by Geometric Confinement. Nat. Commun. 16, 1623 (2025).
Rumble, J. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. 98th edn, (CRC Press, 2017).
Dean, J. A. Lange’s Handbook of Chemistry. (1999).
Bale, C. W. et al. Reprint of: FactSage Thermochemical Software and Databases, 2010–2016. Calphad. 55, 1–19 (2016).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholars (52125309), the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1204301), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52188101, 62404124 and 52473308), Innovation Team Project of Department of Education of Guangdong Province (2023KCXTD051), the Shenzhen Basic Research Project (JCYJ20230807111619039 and JCYJ20220818101014029), and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (2023A1515011752), Shenzhen Science Technology Program (ZDSYS20230626091100001), and Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School-Shenzhen Pengrui Young Faculty Program of Shenzhen Pengrui Foundation (No. SZPR2023002), the Shenzhen HanHua TM Technology Co., LTD (20249660086), and the Jiangsu HanHua TM Technology Co., LTD (20249660085). This work made use of the TEM facilities at the Institute of Materials Research, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (Tsinghua SIGS). The authors would like to thank Units Technology Co.,Ltd (www.units-tech.com.cn) for offering the high-temperature in situ visualization setup.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
B.L. conceived the study and supervised the project. L.H. designed and performed experiments, analyzed data and prepared the manuscript. J.W. performed data collection and analysis. Z.C. carried out the theoretical calculations. R.L. assisted in the synthesis. S.L., Y.Z., Z.Y. Z. and J.L. assisted in the characterizations. B.L., J.W. and C.Z. helped with article revisions. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Source data
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, 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 licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
He, L., Wang, J., Cai, Z. et al. Growth of non-layered 2D transition metal nitrides enabled by transient chloride templates. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68321-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68321-7
