A spectrum of exfoliable 1D van der Waals materials and their electronic properties*

Data-mining efforts suggest there are hundreds of bulk materials with the potential to be exfoliated into one-dimensional (1D) structures. We combine data-mining with DFT calculations to elucidate the properties of 1D wires. We identify several materials that have the potential to be more readily exfoliable than the commonly studied 1D-like materials tellurium and selenium and examine the bulk and single-wire electronic characteristics. While layered materials have received significant attention, their 1D van der Waals counterparts have received relatively small amounts, yet are likely to have many of the same qualities that make layered materials of interest for a number of applications.