Seed growth of tungsten diselenide nanotubes from tungsten oxides

We report growth of tungsten diselenide (WSe2) nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition with a two-zone furnace. WO3 nanowires were first grown by annealing tungsten thin films under argon ambient. WSe2 nanotubes were then grown at the tips of WO3 nanowires through selenization via two steps: (i) formation of tubular WSe2 structures on the outside of WO3 nanowires, resulting in core (WO3)-shell (WSe2) and (ii) growth of WSe2 nanotubes at the tips of WO3 nanowires. The observed seed growth is markedly different from existing substitutional growth of WSe2 nanotubes, where oxygen atoms are replaced by selenium atoms in WO3 nanowires to form WSe2 nanotubes. Another advantage of our growth is that WSe2 film was grown by simply supplying hydrogen gas, where the native oxides were reduced to thin film instead of forming oxide nanowires. Our findings will contribute to engineer other transition metal dichacogenide growth such as MoS2, WS2, and MoSe2.