Abstract
•The first synthesis of a 2D single crystal WSe2/C nanostripe array material.•Extremely high exposure of crystal layer edge sites.•Excellent rate performance as anode material for Na-ion batteries.
2D single crystal WSe2 nanostripe array and its carbon composite WSe2/C material were synthesized. In each piece of the material, WSe2 nanostripes with a uniform width of 7–8 nm were parallelly arranged with a fixed gap of 3.7 nm to form a 2D sheet-like morphology. The entire piece of one WSe2 sheet is a single crystal WSe2 with its c-axis perpendicular to the sheet plane, making all the side surface of the nanostripes fully covered with crystal edge sites. After coating with carbon, 2D WSe2/C composite material displays much better electrochemical properties than the non-porous WSe2 particles, which suggests that 2D WSe2/C nanostripe array may be a promising candidate for reversible storage of Na-ion batteries.