Peierls Distortion and Electronic Property Modulation in 2D Metal Chalcogenides via Ternary Alloying of TiS₃ and NbS₃ Nanobelts

Ternary alloying has proven to be an effective method for inducing significant changes in the structural and electronic properties of archetypal 2D metal chalcogenides. In this study, monoclinic TiS3 and triclinic NbS3 were alloyed with Nb (in TiS3) and Ti (in NbS3) to form ternary alloys, resulting in spectroscopically detectable structural modifications. This process not only increases the number of majority charge carriers in both TiS3 and NbS3 frameworks but also enhances the presence of unpaired d electrons in both compounds. These effects are attributed to the population of the 3d band in TiS3 and the depopulation of the Peierls-distorted dz2 orbital in NbS3.