SCANNING TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY AND IN-SITU HEATING OF WS2 AND APPLICATIONS TO GROUP V TRANSITION METAL CHALCOGENIDES

Transition metal dichalcogenides are layered materials that have been found to have applications in electronics, catalysis, and optoelectronic devices. Understanding and controlling their growth from amorphous precursors into layered crystalline materials have become important to tuning their functionality and optimizing their synthesis. In this thesis, the formation of tungsten disulfide is explored using in-situ scanning transmission electron microscopy and the resulting data is applied to the design of related experiment to better understand group V transition metal chalcogenides.