Raman Spectroscopy Analysis of the Structure and Surface Chemistry of Ti3C2Tx MXene

Raman spectroscopy is one of the most useful tools for the analysis of two-dimensional (2D) materials. While MXenes are a very large family of 2D transition metal carbides and nitrides, there have been just a few Raman studies of materials from this family. Raman spectroscopy detects molecular fingerprints and is sensitive to amorphous compounds as well as traces of transition metal oxides, which are often present in the structure of MXenes. The observed spectral differences indicate that even a slight variation in synthesis affects the vibrational properties of MXene flakes. Raman spectroscopy allows material analysis at each stage of synthesis and processing, including colloidal solutions. Raman spectroscopy is able to provide information on the surface chemistry, stacking, and quality of Ti3C2Tx. Fitting was performed in WiRE 3 software by substracting a linear baseline and fitting each spectrum with the Voight function. Since mapping results contain 2 spectral ranges, there were 2 baselines.