Controlled Synthesis of MoxW1–xTe2 Atomic Layers with Emergent Quantum States

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Recently, new states of matter like superconducting or topological quantum states were found in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and manifested themselves in a series of exotic physical behaviors. Such phenomena have been demonstrated to exist in a series of transition metal tellurides including MoTe 2, WTe 2, and alloyed Mo x W 1– x Te 2. However, the behaviors in the alloy system have been rarely addressed due to their difficulty in obtaining atomic layers with controlled composition, albeit the alloy offers a great platform to tune the quantum states. Here, we report a facile CVD method to synthesize the Mo x W 1– x Te 2 with controllable thickness and chemical composition ratios. The atomic structure of a monolayer Mo x W 1– x Te 2 alloy was experimentally confirmed by scanning transmission electron microscopy. Importantly, two different transport behaviors including superconducting and Weyl semimetal states were observed in Mo-rich Mo 0.8 W 0.2 Te 2 and W-rich Mo 0.2 W 0.8 Te 2 samples, respectively. Our results show that the electrical properties of Mo x W 1– x Te 2 can be tuned by controlling the chemical composition, demonstrating our controllable CVD growth method is an efficient strategy to manipulate the physical properties of TMDCs. Meanwhile, it provides a perspective on further comprehension and sheds light on the design of devices with topological multicomponent TMDC materials.