Gamma Radiation Induced Structural Changes in Two Dimensional MXenes

High electronic conductivity, structural diversity, and hydrophilicity of two dimensional MXenes opened broad prospects for their applications in variety of industrial and technological areas including energy storage, optoelectronics, spintronics, catalysis, and sensing. In this work, we studied the effect of gamma radiation on surface characteristics of mild etched Ti₃C₂T_X MXene using Raman spectroscopy. Ti₃C₂T_X MXene was synthesized by adding Ti₃AlC₂ powders into the LiF/HCl solution and was etched for 7 days at 70 °C. There are several spectral features apparent in the Raman Spectra. The peak ~200 cm⁻¹ peak is related to A1g(Ti, O, C) band whereas peak ~ 720 corresponds to cm⁻¹ A1g(C). These two Raman bands are highly diminished with the 1MGy dose of gamma radiation. The 150 cm⁻¹ was enhanced in gamma irradiated sample indicating that gamma radiation activates the oxidation of surface titanium atoms. In addition, the different intensity of D (1350 cm⁻¹) and G ( 1570 cm⁻¹ ) bands between pristine and gamma irradiated MXenes indicates that the extent of amorphous carbon can also be tuned by gamma irradiation.