Electrochemical tuning of vertically aligned MoS 2 nanofilms and its application in improving hydrogen evolution reaction

Significance The electronic structures of two-dimensional materials can be tuned for a variety of applications by guest species intercalation into the van der Waals gaps. Using Li electrochemical intercalated MoS 2 as an example here, we correlate the continuously tuned electronic structure of lithiated MoS 2 with the corresponding enhanced hydrogen evolution reaction activity, and thus construct the electronic structure–catalytic activity relationship. This work offers a unique thinking of tuning the electronic structures of layered materials by guest species intercalation for optimizing different kinds of catalysis on the basis of the strong correlation between the electronic structures and catalytic activities of the catalysts.