Nanosheets of tungsten disulfide nanomaterials are the most common form, and the main synthetic strategies can be divided into two categories: top-down and bottom-up approaches. Top-down approaches allow the production of small amounts or single-layer samples at a lower cost, which is very beneficial for basic research. Among these top-down methods, mechanical peeling via Scotch tape is the simplest method, with only a few or single layers of WS₂ exfoliated via Scotch tape.

Due to the promising applications of tungsten disulfide nanomaterials in the field of energy conversion and storage, efforts have been made to study and improve its electrical characteristic and HER mechanism of WS₂, such as carrier concentration (p), mobility (μ), and resistivity (ρ). According to theoretical predictions, WS₂ has the highest electron mobility in semiconductor TMDCs due to the reduced effective mass.

1T-WS₂ structure and 2H-WS₂ structure of tungsten disulfide nanomaterials controlled synthesis is important. The 1T-WS₂ structure is considered an efficient co-catalyst for hydrogen evolution due to the increased density of catalytic active sites and the metal conductivity, while the 2H-WS₂ structure can be used as a visible photosensitizer. Therefore, various synthetic methods for the crystalline phase modulation of WS₂ have received much attention. Since the conversion from 1T-WS₂ to stable 2H-WS₂ can be easily achieved by annealing, the study of feasible methods to achieve the opposite conversion has received much attention.

Compared with semiconducting materials, tungsten disulfide nanomaterials exhibit higher light absorption, and photocatalytic properties are another important property. For semiconductor materials, light absorption properties are very important, especially for photocatalysis. When WS₂ absorbs photons, transitions between in-band, out-of-band, and impurity defects occur, which can form specific absorption spectra. The characteristic absorption peak of bulk WS₂ is near the wavelength of 910 nm and is located in the near-infrared (NIR) region. By forming nanostructures, a blue shift of the WS₂ characteristic absorption peak can be observed.