Abstract
Atom-thin amorphous materials (for example, amorphous monolayer carbon) offer a designable material platform for fundamental studies of the disorder system, as well as the development of various applications. However, their growth at a single layer remains challenging since their thermodynamically favourable grains are neither two dimensional nor layered. Here we demonstrate the growth of 1-nm-thick, amorphous metal chalcogenides at a wafer scale using a nanodroplet-driven nanoribbon-to-film strategy. Metal clusters are initially liquified into 1–2 nm droplets at 120 °C, and they then orchestrate the growth of amorphous single-layer nanoribbons, which eventually merge into a continuous centimetre-scale film. Phase-field simulations, combined with our characterizations, suggest a non-equilibrium kinetic growth mechanism, which can be applicable to various films, for example, PtSex, IrSex, PdSex and RhSex. The synthesized films exhibit a range of unique properties, including tunable conductivity through disorder modulation, high work functions and remarkable catalytic activity, making them promising candidates for hole-injection contacts in p-type transistors and hydrogen production applications. This work opens a pathway for the synthesis of non-layered materials approaching the single-layer limit.
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Data availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available within this Article and its Supplementary Information. Additional data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The codes for obtaining the radial distribution function and phase-field simulations are available in the Supplementary Data Files 1–7 or via GitHub at https://github.com/qw0521/NM_code.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFA1500902 (Y.H.) and 2024YFA1409600 (Z.Z.)), the Open Research Fund of Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory (2023SLABFN08 (Y.H.)), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52203354 (Y.H.), 22272048 (Y.H.), 12261160367 (Z.Z.), 12225205 (Z.Z.) and U2441272 (Z.Z.)), the National Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scientists Fund Program (Overseas (Y.H.)), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (531119200209 (Y.H.)), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China (2023JJ10004 (Y.H.)), the Hunan Natural Science Foundation (2024JJ4009 (C.G.)), the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (2024RC3081 (C.G.)), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2023A1515012648 (Y.H.)), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20243044 (Z.Z.)) and Hundred Talents Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (E2XBRD1 (P.T.)).
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Contributions
Y.H. conceived the idea and initiated the project. Y.H., Z.L. and Z.Z. supervised the project and led the collaboration efforts. Z. Shi synthesized the materials; analysed the STEM, XPS and Raman data; and performed the electronic and microelectrochemical measurements. W.Q. and C.Y.Z. carried out the DFT calculations and phase-field simulation. Z.H. proposed the growth theory and prepared the phase-field code. M.M., W.S. and X.S. grew the materials. H.L. calculated the atomic information in STEM. Z. Shu and C.L. carved the reaction windows through electron beam lithography. Y.J. fabricated the devices and performed the electronic measurements. H.X. performed the microelectrochemical measurements. C. Guo conducted the Raman and AFM measurements. Y. Li performed the KPFM measurements. Y. Liu, E.X., H.D., P.T., F.L., C. Gao, S.L., H.W. and C. Gong assisted with the material characterizations and device fabrication. L.T. contributed to the AFM measurements and data analysis. Y.H., Z. Shi, W.Q. and Z.H. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the paper.
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Nature Materials thanks Suyeon Cho, Hyeon Suk Shin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–38, Notes 1–5 and Tables 1–8.
Supplementary Video 1
Simulation of a small Pt droplet staying at the step.
Supplementary Video 2
Simulation of a large Pt droplet climbing over the step.
Supplementary Video 3
Simulation of the U-turn behaviour when one droplet encounters another droplet's trajectory.
Supplementary Video 4
Simulation of one droplet encircled by other droplets' trajectories.
Supplementary Video 5
The self-healing behaviour and the complete film growth.
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Statistical source data.
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Statistical source data.
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Statistical source data.
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Shi, Z., Qin, W., Hu, Z. et al. Sub-2-nm-droplet-driven growth of amorphous metal chalcogenides approaching the single-layer limit. Nat. Mater. 24, 1186–1194 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02273-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02273-z
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