Showing papers by "Nanjing University of Science and Technology published in 2016"

CsPbX3 Quantum Dots for Lighting and Displays: Room-Temperature Synthesis, Photoluminescence Superiorities, Underlying Origins and White Light-Emitting Diodes

Abstract: Recently, Kovalenko and co-workers and Li and co-workers developed CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, I) inorganic perovskite quantum dots (IPQDs), which exhibited ultrahigh photoluminescence (PL) quantum yields (QYs), low-threshold lasing, and multicolor electroluminescence. However, the usual synthesis needs high temperature, inert gas protection, and localized injection operation, which are severely against applications. Moreover, the so unexpectedly high QYs are very confusing. Here, for the first time, the IPQDs' room-temperature (RT) synthesis, superior PL, underlying origins and potentials in lighting and displays are reported. The synthesis is designed according to supersaturated recrystallization (SR), which is operated at RT, within few seconds, free from inert gas and injection operation. Although formed at RT, IPQDs' PLs have QYs of 80%, 95%, 70%, and FWHMs of 35, 20, and 18 nm for red, green, and blue emissions. As to the origins, the observed 40 meV exciton binding energy, halogen self-passivation effect, and CsPbX3@X quantum-well band alignment are proposed to guarantee the excitons generation and high-rate radiative recombination at RT. Moreover, such superior optical merits endow them with promising potentials in lighting and displays, which are primarily demonstrated by the white light-emitting diodes with tunable color temperature and wide color gamut.

Semiconducting Group 15 Monolayers: A Broad Range of Band Gaps and High Carrier Mobilities

Abstract: Optoelectronic applications require materials both responsive to objective photons and able to transfer carriers, so new two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors with appropriate band gaps and high mobilities are highly desired. A broad range of band gaps and high mobilities of a 2D semiconductor family, composed of monolayer of Group 15 elements (phosphorene, arsenene, antimonene, bismuthene) is presented. The calculated binding energies and phonon band dispersions of 2D Group 15 allotropes exhibit thermodynamic stability. The energy band gaps of 2D semiconducting Group 15 monolayers cover a wide range from 0.36 to 2.62 eV, which are crucial for broadband photoresponse. Significantly, phosphorene, arsenene, and bismuthene possess carrier mobilities as high as several thousand cm2 V−1 s−1. Combining such broad band gaps and superior carrier mobilities, 2D Group 15 monolayers are promising candidates for nanoelectronics and optoelectronics.

Two-dimensional antimonene single crystals grown by van der Waals epitaxy.

Abstract: Unlike the unstable black phosphorous, another two-dimensional group-VA material, antimonene, was recently predicted to exhibit good stability and remarkable physical properties. However, the synthesis of high-quality monolayer or few-layer antimonenes, sparsely reported, has greatly hindered the development of this new field. Here, we report the van der Waals epitaxy growth of few-layer antimonene monocrystalline polygons, their atomical microstructure and stability in ambient condition. The high-quality, few-layer antimonene monocrystalline polygons can be synthesized on various substrates, including flexible ones, via van der Waals epitaxy growth. Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy reveal that the obtained antimonene polygons have buckled rhombohedral atomic structure, consistent with the theoretically predicted most stable β-phase allotrope. The very high stability of antimonenes was observed after aging in air for 30 days. First-principle and molecular dynamics simulation results confirmed that compared with phosphorene, antimonene is less likely to be oxidized and possesses higher thermodynamic stability in oxygen atmosphere at room temperature. Moreover, antimonene polygons show high electrical conductivity up to 104 S m−1 and good optical transparency in the visible light range, promising in transparent conductive electrode applications. Several two-dimensional materials have been synthesized to date, yet elemental materials, consisting of individual atomic species, are still scarce. Here, the authors synthesize few-layer, monocrystalline polygons of antimonene via van der Waals epitaxy growth.

Back stress strengthening and strain hardening in gradient structure

Abstract: We report significant back stress strengthening and strain hardening in gradient structured (GS) interstitial-free (IF) steel. Back stress is long-range stress caused by the pileup of geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs). A simple equation and a procedure are developed to calculate back stress basing on its formation physics from the tensile unloading–reloading hysteresis loop. The gradient structure has mechanical incompatibility due to its grain size gradient. This induces strain gradient, which needs to be accommodated by GNDs. Back stress not only raises the yield strength but also significantly enhances strain hardening to increase the ductility.Impact Statement: Gradient structure leads to high back stress hardening to increase strength and ductility. A physically sound equation is derived to calculate the back stress from an unloading/reloading hysteresis loop.

Stabilizing nanostructures in metals using grain and twin boundary architectures

Abstract: Forming alloys with impurity elements is a routine method for modifying the properties of metals. An alternative approach involves the incorporation of interfaces into the crystalline lattice to enhance the metal's properties without changing its chemical composition. The introduction of high-density interfaces in nanostructured materials results in greatly improved strength and hardness; however, interfaces at the nanoscale show low stability. In this Review, I discuss recent developments in the stabilization of nanostructured metals by modifying the architectures of their interfaces. The amount, structure and distribution of several types of interfaces, such as high- and low-angle grain boundaries and twin boundaries, are discussed. I survey several examples of materials with nanotwinned and nanolaminated structures, as well as with gradient nanostructures, describing the techniques used to produce such samples and tracing their exceptional performances back to the nanoscale architectures of their interfaces. The incorporation of structural defects, in particular of interfaces, into crystalline lattices results in enhanced material properties. In this Review, different types of boundaries and interfaces are discussed, including high- and low-angle grain boundaries, twin boundaries, nanotwinned and nanolaminated structures, and gradient nanostructures.

Monolayer and Few-Layer All-Inorganic Perovskites as a New Family of Two-Dimensional Semiconductors for Printable Optoelectronic Devices

Abstract: Printed flexible photodetectors based on 2D inorganic perovskites with atomic thickness show excellent photosensing with fast rise and decay response times. As-synthesized nanosheets can easily be dispersed in various solvents, leading to large-area, crack-free, low-roughness, flexible films after printing. This study demonstrates that all-inorganic perovskite CsPbX3 nanosheets as a new class of 2D semiconductors have huge potential for flexible optoelectronic applications.

Versatile ternary organic solar cells: a critical review

Abstract: The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells has been constantly refreshed in the past ten years from 4% up to 11% due to the contribution from the chemists on novel materials and the physicists on device engineering. For practical applications, a single bulk heterojunction structure may be the best candidate due to the cell with a high PCE, easy fabrication and low cost. Recently, ternary solar cells have attracted much attention due to enhanced photon harvesting by using absorption spectral or energy level complementary materials as the second donor or acceptor based on a single bulk heterojunction structure. For better promoting the development of ternary solar cells, we summarize the recent progress of ternary solar cells and try our best to concise out the scientific issues in preparing high performance ternary solar cells.

Heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in the LHC era: from proton–proton to heavy-ion collisions

Abstract: This report reviews the study of open heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in high-energy hadronic collisions, as tools to investigate fundamental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics, from the proton and nucleus structure at high energy to deconfinement and the properties of the Quark–Gluon Plasma. Emphasis is given to the lessons learnt from LHC Run 1 results, which are reviewed in a global picture with the results from SPS and RHIC at lower energies, as well as to the questions to be addressed in the future. The report covers heavy flavour and quarkonium production in proton–proton, proton–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus collisions. This includes discussion of the effects of hot and cold strongly interacting matter, quarkonium photoproduction in nucleus–nucleus collisions and perspectives on the study of heavy flavour and quarkonium with upgrades of existing experiments and new experiments. The report results from the activity of the SaporeGravis network of the I3 Hadron Physics programme of the European Union 7 $$\mathrm{th}$$ Framework Programme.

Toward Efficient Orange Emissive Carbon Nanodots through Conjugated sp(2) -Domain Controlling and Surface Charges Engineering.

Abstract: A strategy of achieving efficient orange emissive carbon nanodots (CNDs) with large sized conjugated sp(2) -domain is achieved in a solvothermal synthetic route using dimethylformamide as solvent, which is the basis of orange bandgap emission; enhanced orange emission with photoluminescent quantum yield of 46% is realized through surface charges engineering by surface metal-cation-functionalization.

Nonlinear Absorption and Low-Threshold Multiphoton Pumped Stimulated Emission from All-Inorganic Perovskite Nanocrystals

Abstract: Halide perovskite materials have attracted intense research interest due to the striking performance in photoharvesting photovoltaics as well as photoemitting applications. Very recently, the emerging CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, I) perovskite nanocrystals have been demonstrated to be efficient emitters with photoluminescence quantum yield as high as ∼90%, room temperature single photon sources, and favorable lasing materials. Herein, the nonlinear optical properties, in particular, the multiphoton absorption and resultant photoluminescence of the CsPbBr3 nanocrystals, were investigated. Notably, a large two-photon absorption cross-section of up to ∼1.2 × 105 GM is determined for 9 nm sized CsPbBr3 nanocrystals. Moreover, low-threshold frequency-upconverted stimulated emission by two-photon absorption was observed from the thin film of close-packed CsPbBr3 nanocrystals. The stimulated emission is found to be photostable and wavelength-tunable. We further realize the three-photon pumped stimulated emission in green...

Polysynthetic twinned TiAl single crystals for high-temperature applications

Abstract: Increasing the temperature of jet engines requires materials that are stable against degradation. Towards this goal, growth of TiAl alloys with high strength and ductility, as well as superior creep resistance, is reported at high temperatures.

Amorphous FeOOH Quantum Dots Assembled Mesoporous Film Anchored on Graphene Nanosheets with Superior Electrochemical Performance for Supercapacitors

Abstract: Previous research on iron oxides/hydroxides has focused on the crystalline rather than the amorphous phase, despite that the latter could have superior electrochemical activity due to the disordered structure. In this work, a simple and scalable synthesis route is developed to prepare amorphous FeOOH quantum dots (QDs) and FeOOH QDs/graphene hybrid nanosheets. The hybrid nanosheets possess a unique heterostructure, comprising a continuous mesoporous FeOOH nanofilm tightly anchored on the graphene surface. The amorphous FeOOH/graphene hybrid nanosheets exhibit superior pseudocapacitive performance, which largely outperforms the crystalline iron oxides/hydroxides-based materials. In the voltage range between −0.8 and 0 V versus Ag/AgCl, the amorphous FeOOH/graphene composite electrode exhibits a large specific capacitance of about 365 F g−1, outstanding cycle performance (89.7% capacitance retention after 20 000 cycles), and excellent rate capability (189 F g−1 at a current density of 128 A g−1). When the lower cutoff voltage is extended to −1.0 and −1.25 V, the specific capacitance of the amorphous FeOOH/graphene composite electrode can be increased to 403 and 1243 F g−1, respectively, which, however, compromises the rate capability and cycle performance. This work brings new opportunities to design high-performance electrode materials for supercapacitors, especially for amorphous oxides/hydroxides-based materials.

Anomaly Detection in Hyperspectral Images Based on Low-Rank and Sparse Representation

Abstract: A novel method for anomaly detection in hyperspectral images (HSIs) is proposed based on low-rank and sparse representation. The proposed method is based on the separation of the background and the anomalies in the observed data. Since each pixel in the background can be approximately represented by a background dictionary and the representation coefficients of all pixels form a low-rank matrix, a low-rank representation is used to model the background part. To better characterize each pixel's local representation, a sparsity-inducing regularization term is added to the representation coefficients. Moreover, a dictionary construction strategy is adopted to make the dictionary more stable and discriminative. Then, the anomalies are determined by the response of the residual matrix. An important advantage of the proposed algorithm is that it combines the global and local structure in the HSI. Experimental results have been conducted using both simulated and real data sets. These experiments indicate that our algorithm achieves very promising anomaly detection performance.

Producing Bulk Ultrafine-Grained Materials by Severe Plastic Deformation: Ten Years Later

Abstract: It is now well established that the processing of bulk solids through the application of severe plastic deformation (SPD) leads to exceptional grain refinement to the submicrometer or nanometer level. Extensive research over the last decade has demonstrated that SPD processing also produces unusual phase transformations and leads to the introduction of a range of nanostructural features, including nonequilibrium grain boundaries, deformation twins, dislocation substructures, vacancy agglomerates, and solute segregation and clustering. These many structural changes provide new opportunities for fine tuning the characteristics of SPD metals to attain major improvements in their physical, mechanical, chemical, and functional properties. This review provides a summary of some of these recent developments. Special emphasis is placed on the use of SPD processing in achieving increased electrical conductivity, superconductivity, and thermoelectricity, an improved hydrogen storage capability, materials for use in biomedical applications, and the fabrication of high-strength metal-matrix nanocomposites.

Evolutionary Multi-Objective Workflow Scheduling in Cloud

Abstract: Cloud computing provides promising platforms for executing large applications with enormous computational resources to offer on demand. In a Cloud model, users are charged based on their usage of resources and the required quality of service (QoS) specifications. Although there are many existing workflow scheduling algorithms in traditional distributed or heterogeneous computing environments, they have difficulties in being directly applied to the Cloud environments since Cloud differs from traditional heterogeneous environments by its service-based resource managing method and pay-per-use pricing strategies. In this paper, we highlight such difficulties, and model the workflow scheduling problem which optimizes both makespan and cost as a Multi-objective Optimization Problem (MOP) for the Cloud environments. We propose an evolutionary multi-objective optimization (EMO)-based algorithm to solve this workflow scheduling problem on an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform. Novel schemes for problem-specific encoding and population initialization, fitness evaluation and genetic operators are proposed in this algorithm. Extensive experiments on real world workflows and randomly generated workflows show that the schedules produced by our evolutionary algorithm present more stability on most of the workflows with the instance-based IaaS computing and pricing models. The results also show that our algorithm can achieve significantly better solutions than existing state-of-the-art QoS optimization scheduling algorithms in most cases. The conducted experiments are based on the on-demand instance types of Amazon EC2; however, the proposed algorithm are easy to be extended to the resources and pricing models of other IaaS services.

Improving All‐Inorganic Perovskite Photodetectors by Preferred Orientation and Plasmonic Effect

Abstract: All-inorganic perovskites have high carrier mobility, long carrier diffusion length, excellent visible light absorption, and well overlapping with localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of noble metal nanocrystals (NCs). The high-performance photodetectors can be constructed by means of the intrinsic outstanding photoelectric properties, especially plasma coupling. Here, for the first time, inorganic perovskite photodetectors are demonstrated with synergetic effect of preferred-orientation film and plasmonic with both high performance and solution process virtues, evidenced by 238% plasmonic enhancement factor and 106 on/off ratio. The CsPbBr3 and Au NC inks are assembled into high-quality films by centrifugal-casting and spin-coating, respectively, which lead to the low cost and solution-processed photodetectors. The remarkable near-field enhancement effect induced by the coupling between Au LSPR and CsPbBr3 photogenerated carriers is revealed by finite-difference time-domain simulations. The photodetector exhibits a light on/off ratio of more than 106 under 532 nm laser illumination of 4.65 mW cm−2. The photocurrent increases from 0.67 to 2.77 μA with centrifugal-casting. Moreover, the photocurrent rises from 245.6 to 831.1 μA with Au NCs plasma enhancement, leading to an enhancement factor of 238%, which is the most optimal report among the LSPR-enhanced photodetectors, to the best of our knowledge. The results of this study suggest that all-inorganic perovskites are promising semiconductors for high-performance solution-processed photodetectors, which can be further enhanced by Au plasmonic effect, and hence have huge potentials in optical communication, safety monitoring, and biological sensing.

Healing All-Inorganic Perovskite Films via Recyclable Dissolution–Recyrstallization for Compact and Smooth Carrier Channels of Optoelectronic Devices with High Stability

Abstract: The strong ionic character endows all-inorganic CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, I) perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) with different chemical features from classical Cd-based NCs, especially when considering their interaction with polar solvents and surfactants. This has aroused intensive interest, but is still short of comprehensive understanding. More significantly, above characteristic may be used to improve the quality of perovskite thin films, which is crucial for the carrier transport inside optoelectronic devices. Here, an interesting recyclable dissolution–recyrstallization phenomenon of all-inorganic pervoskite, as well as its application on room temperature (RT) self-healing of compact and smooth carrier channels in ambient atmosphere for high-performance PDs with high stability is reported. First, according to solubility equilibrium principle, the size of CsPbBr3 crystals can be reversibly tuned in the range of 10 nm–1 μm through washing with polar solvent or stirring with assistance of surfactants at RT. Second, such phenomenon is applied for significant film quality improvement by forming a liquid circumstance within films, which can transport matter at surface and sharp parts into the gaps, healing themselves at RT. This strategy results in large-area, crack-free, low-roughness perovskite thin films. Obviously, such improvement facilitates transport and extraction of carriers in the channels of devices, which has been evidenced by the improvement of performances of the corresponding PDs at ambient condition.

Fundamentals of superior properties in bulk NanoSPD materials

Abstract: Bulk nanoSPD materials are materials with nanostructural features, such as nanograins, nanoclusters, or nanotwins, produced by severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques. Such nanostructured materials are fully dense and contamination free and in many cases they have superior mechanical and functional properties. Here, we provide a critical overview of such materials, with a focus on the fundamentals for the observed extraordinary properties. We discuss the unique nanostructures that lead to the superior properties, the underlying deformation mechanisms, the critical issues that remain to be investigated, future research directions, and the application potential of such materials.

Nonconvex Nonsmooth Low Rank Minimization via Iteratively Reweighted Nuclear Norm

Abstract: The nuclear norm is widely used as a convex surrogate of the rank function in compressive sensing for low rank matrix recovery with its applications in image recovery and signal processing. However, solving the nuclear norm-based relaxed convex problem usually leads to a suboptimal solution of the original rank minimization problem. In this paper, we propose to use a family of nonconvex surrogates of $L_{0}$ -norm on the singular values of a matrix to approximate the rank function. This leads to a nonconvex nonsmooth minimization problem. Then, we propose to solve the problem by an iteratively reweighted nuclear norm (IRNN) algorithm. IRNN iteratively solves a weighted singular value thresholding problem, which has a closed form solution due to the special properties of the nonconvex surrogate functions. We also extend IRNN to solve the nonconvex problem with two or more blocks of variables. In theory, we prove that the IRNN decreases the objective function value monotonically, and any limit point is a stationary point. Extensive experiments on both synthesized data and real images demonstrate that IRNN enhances the low rank matrix recovery compared with the state-of-the-art convex algorithms.

Hydrogenation of nitrophenols catalyzed by carbon black-supported nickel nanoparticles under mild conditions

Abstract: A carbon black (CB) supported nano-Ni catalyst is prepared by a facile method using nickel chloride as the nickel source and hydrazine hydrate as the reducing agent. TEM observation shows that Ni nanoparticles have a good dispersion with a narrow size distribution on the surface of carbon black. The catalyst exhibits significantly high catalytic activity for hydrogenation of nitrophenols even at 30 °C. The high performance obtained here can be attributed to the specific characteristics of the nanostructure of the catalyst and the synergistic effect of nano-Ni and carbon black, including plenty of oxygen-containing groups of carbon black for anchoring Ni atoms, strong adsorption ability for organic molecules and good conductivity for electron transfer from the carbon black to Ni nanoparticles. Moreover, the Ni-based catalyst is relatively cheap and magnetically separable, thus achieving a low-cost hydrogenation of nitrophenols to aminophenols.

Vandermonde Decomposition of Multilevel Toeplitz Matrices With Application to Multidimensional Super-Resolution

Abstract: The Vandermonde decomposition of Toeplitz matrices, discovered by Caratheodory and Fejer in the 1910s and rediscovered by Pisarenko in the 1970s, forms the basis of modern subspace methods for 1-D frequency estimation. Many related numerical tools have also been developed for multidimensional (MD), especially 2-D, frequency estimation; however, a fundamental question has remained unresolved as to whether an analog of the Vandermonde decomposition holds for multilevel Toeplitz matrices in the MD case. In this paper, an affirmative answer to this question and a constructive method for finding the decomposition are provided when the matrix rank is lower than the dimension of each Toeplitz block. A numerical method for searching for a decomposition is also proposed when the matrix rank is higher. The new results are applied to study the MD frequency estimation within the recent super-resolution framework. A precise formulation of the atomic $\ell _{0}$ norm is derived using the Vandermonde decomposition. Practical algorithms for frequency estimation are proposed based on the relaxation techniques. Extensive numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of these algorithms compared with the existing atomic norm and subspace methods.

Exact Joint Sparse Frequency Recovery via Optimization Methods

Abstract: Frequency recovery/estimation from discrete samples of superimposed sinusoidal signals is a classic yet important problem in statistical signal processing. Its research has recently been advanced by atomic norm techniques that exploit signal sparsity, work directly on continuous frequencies, and completely resolve the grid mismatch problem of previous compressed sensing methods. In this paper, we investigate the frequency recovery problem in the presence of multiple measurement vectors (MMVs) which share the same frequency components, termed as joint sparse frequency recovery and arising naturally from array processing applications. To study the advantage of MMVs, we first propose an ${\ell }_{2,0}$ norm like approach by exploiting joint sparsity and show that the number of recoverable frequencies can be increased except in a trivial case. While the resulting optimization problem is shown to be rank minimization that cannot be practically solved, we then propose an MMV atomic norm approach that is a convex relaxation and can be viewed as a continuous counterpart of the ${\ell }_{2,1}$ norm method. We show that this MMV atomic norm approach can be solved by semidefinite programming. We also provide theoretical results showing that the frequencies can be exactly recovered under appropriate conditions. The above results either extend the MMV compressed sensing results from the discrete to the continuous setting or extend the recent super-resolution and continuous compressed sensing framework from the single to the multiple measurement vectors case. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate our theoretical findings and they also imply that the proposed MMV atomic norm approach can improve the performance in terms of reduced number of required measurements and/or relaxed frequency separation condition.

Novel mesoporous P-doped graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets coupled with ZnIn2S4 nanosheets as efficient visible light driven heterostructures with remarkably enhanced photo-reduction activity

Abstract: In this report, we rationally designed and fabricated P-C3N4/ZnIn2S4 nanocomposites by in situ immobilizing ZnIn2S4 nanosheets onto the surface of mesoporous P-doped graphite carbon nitrogen (P-C3N4) nanosheets in a mixed solvothermal environment; their application to the photoreduction of 4-nitroaniline was used to estimate the photocatalytic performance. Different to the template route, here the mesoporous P-C3N4 nanosheets were prepared with a template-free strategy. The as-fabricated P-C3N4/ZnIn2S4 nanocomposites were systematically characterized by analyzing the phase structure, chemical components, electronic and optical properties and separation of charge carrier pairs. More importantly, these P-C3N4/ZnIn2S4 heterostructures have been proven to be highly efficient visible light responsive photocatalysts for photo-reduction, and meanwhile exhibit excellent photo-stability during recycling runs. The sufficient evidence reveals that the significantly improved photocatalytic performance is mainly attributed to the more efficient charge carrier separation based on the construction of a close heterogeneous interface. This work may provide new insights into the utilization of P-C3N4/ZnIn2S4 nanocomposites as visible light driven photocatalysts for comprehensive organic transformations in the field of fine chemical engineering.

A Centrosymmetric Hexagonal Magnet with Superstable Biskyrmion Magnetic Nanodomains in a Wide Temperature Range of 100–340 K

Abstract: Superstable biskyrmion magnetic nanodomains are experimentally observed for the first time in a hexagonal MnNiGa, a common and easily produced centrosymmetric material. The biskyrmion states in MnNiGa thin plates, as determined by the combination of in situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy images, magnetoresistivity, and topological Hall effect measurements, are surprisingly stable over a broad temperature range of 100-340 K.

Nonlinear Saturable Absorption of Liquid-Exfoliated Molybdenum/Tungsten Ditelluride Nanosheets

Abstract: Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2 ) and tungsten disulfide (WS2 ), two representative transition metal dichalcogenide materials, have captured tremendous interest for their unique electronic, optical, and chemical properties. Compared with MoS2 and WS2 , molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2 ) and tungsten ditelluride (WTe2 ) possess similar lattice structures while having smaller bandgaps (less than 1 eV), which is particularly interesting for applications in the near-infrared wavelength regime. Here, few-layer MoTe2 /WTe2 nanosheets are fabricated by a liquid exfoliation method using sodium deoxycholate bile salt as surfactant, and the nonlinear optical properties of the nanosheets are investigated. The results demonstrate that MoTe2 /WTe2 nanosheets exhibit nonlinear saturable absorption property at 1.55 μm. Soliton mode-locking operations are realized separately in erbium-doped fiber lasers utilizing two types of MoTe2 /WTe2 -based saturable absorbers, one of which is prepared by depositing the nanosheets on side polished fibers, while the other is fabricated by mixing the nanosheets with polyvinyl alcohol and then evaporating them on substrates. Numerous applications may benefit from the nonlinear saturable absorption features of MoTe2 /WTe2 nanosheets, such as visible/near-infrared pulsed laser, materials processing, optical sensors, and modulators.