Jiuyi Zhu, Fei Li, YuanZhen Hou, Hang Li, Dingxin Xu, Junyang Tan, Jinhong Du, Shaogang Wang, Zhengbo Liu, HengAn Wu, FengChao Wang, Yang Su, Hui-Ming Cheng
The conventional fabrication of bulk van der Waals (vdW) materials requires a temperature above 1,000 °C to sinter from the corresponding particulates. Here we report the near-room-temperature densification (for example, ∼45 °C for 10 min) of two-dimensional nanosheets to form strong bulk materials with a porosity of <0.1%, which are mechanically stronger than the conventionally made ones. The mechanistic study shows that the water-mediated activation of van der Waals interactions accounts for the strong and dense bulk materials...
March 15, 2024: Nature Materials