Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activities of WS₂ can be improved by doping exotic atom to increase active sites on base plane and narrow the bandgap. However, most of these catalysts of exotic atom doped WS₂ are composed of semiconductor and the electronegativity between atoms is similar, which do harm to tuning bandgap with a wide range and decreasing the value of free Gibbs energy (ΔG_H) for hydrogen adsorption. Given that Te can tune bandgap with a wide range and the electronegativity between S and Te differ greatly, a vertically arranged WS₂ nanoelectrode is prepared by doping Te on WS₂. According to experimental studies and the density functional theory calculations (DFT), the bandgap of WS₂ nanosheets is successfully narrowed after doping Te. This lowers the Schottky barrier which benefits the transfer of charges and improves electrocatalytic performance in turn. Meanwhile, the presence of Te atoms with much lower electronegativity than S increases the electron density of the adjacent region, thereby the S edges of basal plane around Te atoms and hollow sites of WS₂ nanosheet become active to drive HER, which has been verified by the reduced ΔG_H of S edges of basal plane from 2.27 to 2.08 eV and hollow sites from 2.28 to 1.85 eV after the doping in DFT. Te-doped WS₂ nanosheets used as excellent HER catalysts with an overpotential of 213 mV to drive a current density of 10 mA/cm², a small Tafel slope of 94 mV/dec, along with a superior stability in acid media.

可以通过掺杂外来原子以增加基面上的活性位点并缩小带隙来提高WS _2的氢释放反应（HER）活性。然而，这些外来原子掺杂的WS ₂催化剂大多数由半导体组成，原子之间的电负性相似，这不利于宽范围地调节带隙并降低用于氢吸附的自由吉布斯能量（ΔG _H）的值。。鉴于Te可以在宽范围内调节带隙并且S和Te之间的电负性差异很大，因此通过在WS ₂上掺杂Te可以制备垂直排列的WS ₂纳米电极。根据实验研究和密度泛函理论计算（DFT），掺杂Te后，WS ₂纳米片的带隙成功缩小。这降低了肖特基势垒，有利于电荷转移并依次提高了电催化性能。同时，具有比S低得多的电负性的Te原子的存在增加了相邻区域的电子密度，从而围绕Te原子的基面的S边缘和WS ₂纳米片的中空位点变得具有活性来驱动HER，这已通过验证减小Δ ģ _ħ基底面S的边缘从2.27到2.08 eV和从2.28到1.85 eV的中空部位在DFT的掺杂之后。Te掺杂的WS ₂用作优异HER催化剂的纳米片，其超电势为213 mV，可驱动10 mA / cm ²的电流密度，94 mV / dec的小Tafel斜率，以及在酸性介质中的优异稳定性。