In order to further prove the strong bonding of chemical elements between the modified MoO
3 QDs after grafting, we conducted XPS test (Figs. 4a and b). At first, from XPS survey spectra of the modified MoO
3 QDs in Fig. S1 (Supporting information) which shows the modified MoO
3 QDs includes mainly chemical elements O, N, C, Mo, S. The element Mo was from 2D material MoO
3 QDs, while the elements N, C, S were from red carbon dots.
Fig. 4a is the Mo 3d spectra of the XPS, the peaks at 232.63 and 235.73 eV are ascribed to the 3d
3/2 and the 3d
5/2 orbital electrons of Mo
6+, while the peaks at 231.53 and 234.58 eV are attributed to the 3d
3/2 and the 3d
5/2 orbital electrons of Mo
5+. According to previous reports, the appearance of Mo
5+ indicates the interaction between MoO
3 quantum dots and H
+ ions. In our system, the red carbon dots were synthesized in ethanol solvent, when red carbon dots grafted onto the MoO
3 will combination with H
+ in the original system. At the same time, the combination of non-metallic elements in the red carbon dots with molybdenum element will cause the molybdenum ions to lose electrons, so that part of the Mo
5+ in the system will be converted into Mo
6+, which facilitates the formation of lamellar 2D materials [
18]. XPS analysis of the C 1s spectra shows the 284.63 eV, 285.28 eV and 286.03 eV binding energy signals referred to C—C, C—N and C—O in
Fig. 4b. XPS analysis of the O 1s spectra in Fig. S2a (Supporting information) shows that peaks at 530.78, 531.33, 531.88 and 532.58 eV were attributed to Mo-O, C—O, O—H and C=O, respectively. Fig. S2b (Supporting information) shows that the peak at 399.13 eV was pyridinic N, the peak at 400.53 eV was pyrrolic N, and the peak at 401.38 eV contributed to the graphitic N. We also conducted XRD experiments of MoO
3 and modified MoO
3 to characterize the phase structure in Fig. S3 (Supporting information). From the XRD pattern, we can find the difference between MoO
3 and modified MoO
3 obviously. A clear crystallization formation was found in modified MoO
3, indicating that the modified MoO
3 QDs crystal is more stable [
23].