  The interest in tellurium nanostructures is on the rise due to their
outstanding physical properties including high carrier mobility, anisotropic
charge conduction, photoconductivity, thermoelectricity, and piezoelectricity.
Applications in related technologies require tailoring the synthesis of
tellurium from its preferred vertical growth toward the lateral growth. Here,
the synthesis of pillar-like and pennette-like structures of tellurium through
a powder vapor deposition technique has been discussed. It has been shown that
exploiting salt additives such as NaCl in vapor deposition technique can
enhance tellurium pillar dimensionality toward large planar grains. Further, we
report on the synthesis of hexagonal ultrathin tellurium nanoflakes, namely
tellurene, from few-layer to monolayer thickness by optimizing the growth
kinetics without the usage of any additives. In addition, we explore the
surface quality and physical properties of as-grown two-dimensional (2D)
tellurium, using a variety of characterization techniques, including Raman
spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and Kelvin
probe force microscopy. This study provides a pivotal scheme for enabling
scalable 2D tellurium integration in numerous potential applications for
electronics and optoelectronic devices.
