Abstract
Two-dimensional transition metal carbides (MXenes) have attracted a great interest of the research community as a relatively recently discovered large class of materials with unique electronic and optical properties. Understanding of adhesion between MXenes and various substrates is critically important for MXene device fabrication and performance. We report results of direct atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements of adhesion of two MXenes (Ti3C2Tx and Ti2CTx) with a SiO2 coated Si spherical tip. The Maugis-Dugdale theory was applied to convert the AFM measured adhesion force to adhesion energy, while taking into account surface roughness. The obtained adhesion energies were compared with those for mono-, bi-, and tri-layer graphene, as well as SiO2 substrates. The average adhesion energies for the MXenes are 0.90 ± 0.03 J m-2 and 0.40 ± 0.02 J m-2 for thicker Ti3C2Tx and thinner Ti2CTx, respectively, which is of the same order of magnitude as that between graphene and silica tip.
Recommended Citation
Y. Li et al., "Adhesion of two-dimensional titanium carbides (MXenes) and graphene to silicon," Nature Communications, vol. 10, Nature Research, Jul 2019.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10982-8
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Second Department
Chemistry
Research Center/Lab(s)
Center for Research in Energy and Environment (CREE)
Second Research Center/Lab
Center for High Performance Computing Research
Keywords and Phrases
Graphene; Structural properties; Two-dimensional materials
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
2041-1723
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2019 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publication Date
08 Jul 2019
Comments
The authors would like to thank Material Research Center at Missouri University of Science and Technology for financial support