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The metal diborides are a class of ceramic materials with crystal structures consisting of hexagonal sheets of boron atoms alternating with planes of metal atoms held together with mixed character ionic/covalent bonds. Many of the metal diborides are ultrahigh temperature ceramics like HfB$_2$, TaB$_2$, and ZrB$_2$, which have melting points above 3000$^circ$C, high mechanical hardness and strength at high temperatures, and high chemical resistance, while MgB$_2$ is a superconductor with a transition temperature of 39 K. Here we demonstrate that this diverse family of non-van der Waals materials can be processed into stable dispersions of two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets using ultrasonication-assisted exfoliation. We generate 2D nanosheets of the metal diborides AlB$_2$, CrB$_2$, HfB$_2$, MgB$_2$, NbB$_2$, TaB$_2$, TiB$_2$, and ZrB$_2$, and use electron and scanning probe microscopies to characterize their structures, morphologies, and compositions. The exfoliated layers span up to micrometers in lateral dimension and reach thicknesses down to 2-3 nm, while retaining their hexagonal atomic structure and chemical composition. We exploit the convenient solution-phase dispersions of exfoliated CrB$_2$ nanosheets to incorporate them directly into polymer composites. In contrast to the hard and brittle bulk CrB$_2$, we find that CrB$_2$ nanocomposites remain very flexible and simultaneously provide increases in the elastic modulus and the ultimate tensile strength of the polymer. The successful liquid-phase production of 2D metal diborides enables their processing using scalable low-temperature solution-phase methods, extending their use to previously unexplored applications, and reveals a new family of non-van der Waals materials that can be efficiently exfoliated into 2D forms.
We search for novel two-dimensional materials that can be easily exfoliated from their parent compounds. Starting from 108423 unique, experimentally known three-dimensional compounds we identify a subset of 5619 that appear layered according to robus
The electronic band structure of crystals is generally influenced by the periodic arrangement of their constituent atoms. Specifically, the emerging two-dimensional (2D) layered structures have shown different band structures with respect to their st
Producing monolayers and few-layers in high yield with environment-stability is still a challenge in hafnium disulphide (HfS2), which is a layered two-dimensional material of group-IV transition metal dichalcogenides, to reveal its unlocked electroni
Laterally large (~3 micrometers), atomically-thin two-dimensional (2D) Bi2O2CO3 nanosheets (2D bismuth oxycarbonate, 2D bismutite) are fabricated via sonochemically-assisted template-free synthesis. Key to the synthesis of the freestanding, laterally
Growth of two-dimensional metals has eluded materials scientists since the discovery of the atomically thin graphene and other covalently bound 2D materials. Here, we report a two-atom-thick hexagonal copper-gold alloy, grown through thermal evaporat