Machine learning driven synthesis of few-layered WTe₂ with geometrical control

Reducing the lateral scale of two-dimensional (2D) materials to one-dimensional (1D) has attracted substantial research interest not only to achieve competitive electronic applications but also for the exploration of fundamental physical properties. Controllable synthesis of high-quality 1D nanoribbons (NRs) is thus highly desirable and essential for further study. Here, we report the implementation of supervised machine learning (ML) for the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis of high-quality quasi-1D few-layered WTe2 NRs. Feature importance analysis indicates that H2 gas flow rate has a profound influence on the formation of WTe2, and the source ratio governs the sample morphology. Notably, the growth mechanism of 1T' few-layered WTe2 NRs is further proposed, which provides new insights for the growth of intriguing 2D and 1D tellurides and may inspire the growth strategies for other 1D nanostructures. Our findings suggest the effectiveness and capability of ML in guiding the synthesis of 1D nanostructures, opening up new opportunities for intelligent materials development. Ministry of Education (MOE) The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFB2008501 and 2019YFC1520900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61974120, 11904289, 61701402, and 61804125), Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Province (2020ZDLGY04-08, 2020GXLH-Z-027, 2021JZ-43), the Key Program for International Science and Technology Cooperation Projects of Shaanxi Province (2018KWZ-08), the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2019JQ-613), the Natural Science Foundation of Ningbo (202003N4003), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (3102019PY004, 31020190QD010, and 3102019JC004), and the start-up funds from Northwestern Polytechnical University. The authors also acknowledge the support from Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its AcRF Tier 3 Programme "Geometrical Quantum Materials" (MOE2018-T3-1-002) and AcRF Tier 1 RG161/19.