Ricerc@Sapienza

In recent years, new types of materials have been discovered with unique properties, in particular two-dimensional (2D) materials. Working with 2D materials is difficult as in their purest form they consist of only a sheet of atoms, one layer thick. This makes analysis a delicate matter, with the use of low energy techniques necessary to prevent degradation and damage. When analyzing 2D materials, the most important considerations are the chemistry, assessment of surface contamination, and the confirmation of the structure. 2D materials, such as hexagonal boron nitrides, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), metal oxides, and hydroxides, have attracted much renewed attention. A new, potentially large category of early transition metal carbides and/or carbonitrides called ¿MXenes¿ has recently been added to the constellation of 2D materials. MXene sheets are a type of material made up of MAX phases, which have the general formula M(n+1)AX(n), where `M¿ is an early transition metal, `A¿ is an A-group element, and `X¿ is either carbon or nitrogen. MXene nanosheets structure will be made by etching the `A¿ group element out of MAX phase.
Our goal is to achieve a 2D MXene multilayer nanosheet structure by synthesizing 2D bulk MAX phases using chemical etching techniques and other useful processes. In order to tailor their properties, we will dope MXene by low cost & easy synthesizing methods. We will introduce Rare Earth elements as dopants so to study the effect of doping on bandgap, optical, electrical, chemical, and magnetic properties. We will study their electronic surface structure, stoichiometry and chemical bonding via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Our ultimate focus will be to utilize our synthesized materials as electrodes or electrolytes in energy storage applications such as batteries. The need of the era is to develop materials that can be utilized in energy storage devices, and nanomaterials are increasing significantly in this field's development.