2D metal oxide nanosheets have attracted substantial attention for various applications owing to their appealing advantages. Yet, the exploration of effective methodology for fabrication of metallic 2D metal oxides with a high concentration of N dopants in a scalable manner remains challenging. Herein, a topochemical strategy is demonstrated on vanadium oxide nanosheets by combining 2D nanostructuring, heteroatom-doping, and defect engineering for modulating their intrinsic electronic structure and greatly enhancing their electrochemical property. O vacancies and N dopants (VON and VN bonds) are in situ formed in vanadium oxide via nitridation and lead to semiconductive-to-metallic phase transformation evidenced by experimental results and theoretical calculation. Overall, the N-VO0.9 nanosheets exhibit a metallic electron transportation behavior and excellent electrochemical performance. These findings shed light on the rational design and electron structure tuning of 2D nanostructures for energy and electronics applications.
Keywords: 2D nanosheet; Li storage; defects; semiconductor-to-metal transition; vanadium oxide.
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