Advent of 2D Rhenium Disulfide (ReS₂): Fundamentals to Applications

Rhenium disulfide (ReS 2 ) is a two‐dimensional (2D) group VII transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD). It is attributed with structural and vibrational anisotropy, layer‐independent electrical and optical properties, and metal‐free magnetism properties. These properties are unusual compared with more widely used group VI‐TMDs, e.g., MoS 2 , MoSe 2 , WS 2 and WSe 2 . Consequently, it has attracted significant interest in recent years and is now being used for a variety of applications including solid state electronics, catalysis, and, energy harvesting and energy storage. It is anticipated that ReS 2 has the potential to be equally used in parallel with isotropic TMDs from group VI for all known applications and beyond. Therefore, a review on ReS 2 is very timely. In this first review on ReS 2 , we critically analyze the available synthesis procedures and their pros/cons, atomic structure and lattice symmetry, crystal structure, and growth mechanisms with an insight into the orientation and architecture of domain and grain boundaries, decoupling of structural and vibrational properties, anisotropic electrical, optical, and magnetic properties impacted by crystal imperfections, doping and adatoms adsorptions, and contemporary applications in different areas.