Synthesis and Characterization of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Nanoribbons Based on a Controllable O(2) Etching

[Image: see text] Although the synthesis of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides has been established in the last decade, synthesizing nanoribbons remains challenging. In this study, we have developed a straightforward method to obtain nanoribbons with controllable widths (25–8000 nm) and lengths (1–50 μm) by O(2) etching of the metallic phase in metallic/semiconducting in-plane heterostructures of monolayer MoS(2). We also successfully applied this process for synthesizing WS(2), MoSe(2), and WSe(2) nanoribbons. Furthermore, field-effect transistors of the nanoribbons show an on/off ratio of larger than 1000, photoresponses of 1000%, and time responses of 5 s. The nanoribbons were compared with monolayer MoS(2), highlighting a substantial difference in the photoluminescence emission and photoresponses. Additionally, the nanoribbons were used as a template to build one-dimensional (1D)–1D or 1D–2D heterostructures with various transition metal dichalcogenides. The process developed in this study offers simple production of nanoribbons with applications in several fields of nanotechnology and chemistry.