ABSTRACT
Research in the field of two-dimensional (2D) materials has been accelerated owing to their various fascinating properties, which make them potentially important for flexible electronic/optoelectronic/energy applications. Also, the commercialization of 2D nanomaterials warrants the production of large-scale, high-quality, and low-cost 2D nanomaterials in a reproducible manner and is one of the decisive factors for various device fabrications and applications. Keeping in view the scientific interest sparked by 2D nanomaterials and their noteworthy contribution in several device applications, lots of research efforts are being devoted to developing various 2D nanomaterial-based synthesis techniques. Consequently, this chapter addresses the various top-down approaches including mechanical exfoliation/cleavage, ball milling, electrochemical exfoliation, sonication-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation, unzipping of the corresponding nanotubes via various routes such as chemical etching or ion intercalation, etc., employed for the synthesis of 2D materials. Since it is hard to cover all the synthesis approaches for all the 2D materials within a single chapter and accordingly, we have restricted ourselves to 2D graphene, transition metal chalcogenides, and hexagonal boron nitride only. The top-down synthesis approach along with a few recent results for these 2D nanomaterials have also been summarized.
