Mechanical origin of martensite-like structures in two-dimensional ReS2

Martensite is a needle-shaped microstructure formed by a rapid, diffusionless transformation and significantly affects the mechanical properties of materials. Here, in two-dimensional ReS2 we show that martensite-like domain structures can form via a diffusionless transformation, involving small lattice deformations. By analyzing the strain distribution and topology of the as-grown chemical vapor deposition samples, we find that cooling-induced strain at the ReS2/substrate interface is responsible for the mechanical loading and is essential for martensite-like domain formation. Meanwhile, the effect of cooling rate, flake size and substrate on the microstructures revealed the mechanical origin of the transformation. The strain-induced lattice reconstructions are rationalized and possibly lead to ferroelastic effects. In view of the strong anisotropy in electronic and optical properties in two dimensional materials like ReS2, opportunities exist for strain-correlated micro/nanostructure engineering, which has potential use in next-generation strain-tunable devices. Two-dimensional materials have well-defined atomic-scale structure, which has the potential to be tuned by processing. Here, substrate-induced straining during the growth of ReS2 causes the formation of martensite-like domain structures.