Extraction of Two-Dimensional Aluminum Alloys from Decagonal Quasicrystals.

Atomically thin metallic alloys will be exciting due to their prospective applications as interconnects/contacts in two-dimensional (2D) circuits, sensors, and catalysts. Here we demonstrate an and easily scalable technique for the synthesis of 2D metallic alloys from their quasicrystalline solid precursors. We have used Aluminum (Al) based single phase decagonal quasicrystal in Al66Co17Cu17 alloy to extract the respective 2D alloy structure. The 2D layered Al alloy possesses two-fold decagonal quasicrystalline symmetry and consists of two-three layers thick sheets with the lateral dimension of microns. These 2D metallic layers were assembled with atomic layers of tungsten disulfide to form stacked heterostructure, which is demonstrated to be a stable and efficient catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction.