Electronic structure and hydrogen evolution reaction in layered ReS₂ regulated by alkali-metal atom intercalation

摘要： Recently, the atom intercalation method has been developed and applied into two-dimensional (2D) materials to regulate their pristine physical property. However, as an important application in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the influence of alkali-metal-intercalated technology upon 2D material's electronic structure and catalytic activity should be investigated systematically. In this work, layered ReS2 crystals with a charge decoupling are chosen as a model to explore changes in electronic structure and Gibbs free energies induced by alkali-metal intercalated compounds and external strain. The calculated results disclose that the structural transformation induced by intercalated alkali atom and external strain not only leads to decrease in band gap of ReS2 but also make Gibbs free energy of adsorbed hydrogen close to zero. Our calculations provide an insight to improve HER performance by a simple alkali-metal-intercalated technology.