Emerging Schemes for Advancing 2D Material Photoconductive-Type Photodetectors.

By virtue of the widely tunable band structure, dangling-bond-free surface, gate electrostatic controllability, excellent flexibility, and high light transmittance, 2D layered materials have shown indisputable application prospects in the field of optoelectronic sensing. However, 2D materials commonly suffer from weak light absorption, limited carrier lifetime, and pronounced interfacial effects, which have led to the necessity for further improvement in the performance of 2D material photodetectors to make them fully competent for the numerous requirements of practical applications. In recent years, researchers have explored multifarious improvement methods for 2D material photodetectors from a variety of perspectives. To promote the further development and innovation of 2D material photodetectors, this review epitomizes the latest research progress in improving the performance of 2D material photodetectors, including improvement in crystalline quality, band engineering, interface passivation, light harvesting enhancement, channel depletion, channel shrinkage, and selective carrier trapping, with the focus on their underlying working mechanisms. In the end, the ongoing challenges in this burgeoning field are underscored, and potential strategies addressing them have been proposed. On the whole, this review sheds light on improving the performance of 2D material photodetectors in the upcoming future.

Atomic scale insights into the epitaxial growth mechanism of 2D Cr3Te4 on mica.

Two-dimensional (2D) magnetic materials are of wide research interest owing to their promising applications in spintronic devices. Among them, chromium chalcogenide compounds are some of the limited available systems that present both high stability in air and high Curie temperatures. Epitaxial growth techniques based on chemical vapour deposition (CVD) have been demonstrated to be a robust method for growing 2D non-layered chromium chalcogenides. However, the growth mechanism is not well-understood. Here, we demonstrate the epitaxial growth of Cr3Te4 nanoplates with high quality on mica. Atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) imaging reveals that the epitaxial growth is based on nanosized chromium oxide seed particles at the interface of Cr3Te4 and mica. The chromium oxide nanoparticle exhibits a coherent interface with both mica and Cr3Te4 with a lattice mismatch within 3%, suggesting that, as a buffer layer, chromium oxide can release the interfacial strain, and induce the growth of Cr3Te4 although there is a distinct oxygen-content difference between mica and Cr3Te4. This work provides an experimental understanding behind the epitaxial growth of 2D magnetic materials at the atomic scale and facilitates the improvement of their growth procedures for devices with high crystalline quality.

Ultrabroadband Imaging Based on Wafer-Scale Tellurene.

High-resolution imaging is at the heart of the revolutionary breakthroughs of intelligent technologies, and it is established as an important approach toward high-sensitivity information extraction/storage. However, due to the incompatibility between non-silicon optoelectronic materials and traditional integrated circuits as well as the lack of competent photosensitive semiconductors in the infrared region, the development of ultrabroadband imaging is severely impeded. Herein, the monolithic integration of wafer-scale tellurene photoelectric functional units by exploiting room-temperature pulsed-laser deposition is realized. Taking advantage of the surface plasmon polaritons of tellurene, which results in the thermal perturbation promoted exciton separation, in situ formation of out-of-plane homojunction and negative expansion promoted carrier transport, as well as the band bending promoted electron-hole pair separation enabled by the unique interconnected nanostrip morphology, the tellurene photodetectors demonstrate wide-spectrum photoresponse from 370.6 to 2240 nm and unprecedented photosensitivity with the optimized responsivity, external quantum efficiency and detectivity of 2.7 × 107  A W-1 , 8.2 × 109 % and 4.5 × 1015  Jones. An ultrabroadband imager is demonstrated and high-resolution photoelectric imaging is realized. The proof-of-concept wafer-scale tellurene-based ultrabroadband photoelectric imaging system depicts a fascinating paradigm for the development of an advanced 2D imaging platform toward next-generation intelligent equipment.

Quantum tailoring for polarization-discriminating Bi2S3 nanowire photodetectors and their multiplexing optical communication and imaging applications.

In this study, cost-efficient atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition has been successfully developed to produce well-aligned high-quality monocrystalline Bi2S3 nanowires. By virtue of surface strain-induced energy band reconstruction, the Bi2S3 photodetectors demonstrate a broadband photoresponse across 370.6 to 1310 nm. Upon a gate voltage of 30 V, the responsivity, external quantum efficiency, and detectivity reach 23 760 A W-1, 5.55 × 106%, and 3.68 × 1013 Jones, respectively. The outstanding photosensitivity is ascribed to the high-efficiency spacial separation of photocarriers, enabled by synergy of the axial built-in electric field and type-II band alignment, as well as the pronounced photogating effect. Moreover, a polarization-discriminating photoresponse has been unveiled. For the first time, the correlation between quantum confinement and dichroic ratio is systematically explored. The optoelectronic dichroism is established to be negatively correlated with the cross dimension (i.e., width and height) of the channel. Specifically, upon 405 nm illumination, the optimized dichroic ratio reaches 2.4, the highest value among the reported Bi2S3 photodetectors. In the end, proof-of-concept multiplexing optical communications and broadband lensless polarimetric imaging have been implemented by exploiting the Bi2S3 nanowire photodetectors as light-sensing functional units. This study develops a quantum tailoring strategy for tailoring the polarization properties of (quasi-)1D material photodetectors whilst depicting new horizons for the next-generation opto-electronics industry.

In situ integration of Te/Si 2D/3D heterojunction photodetectors toward UV-vis-IR ultra-broadband photoelectric technologies.

Over the past decade, 2D elemental semiconductors have emerged as an ever-increasingly important group in the 2D material family due to their simple crystal structures and compositions, and versatile physical properties. Taking advantage of the relatively small bandgap, outstanding carrier mobility, high air-stability and strong interactions with light, 2D tellurium (Te) has emerged as a compelling candidate for use in ultra-broadband photoelectric technologies. In this study, high-quality centimeter-scale Te nanofilms have been successfully produced by exploiting pulsed-laser deposition (PLD). By performing deposition on pre-patterned SiO2/Si substrates, a Te/Si 2D/3D heterojunction array is formed in situ. To our delight, taking advantage of the relatively small bandgap of Te, the Te/Si photodetectors demonstrate an ultra-broadband photoresponse from ultraviolet to near-infrared (370.6 nm to 2240 nm), enabling them to serve as important alternatives to conventional 2D materials such as MoS2. In addition, an outstanding on/off ratio of ∼108 and a fast response rate (a response/recovery time of 3.7 ms/4.4 ms) are achieved, which is associated with the large band offset and strong interfacial built-in electric field that contribute to suppressing the dark current and separating photocarriers. Beyond these, a 35 × 35 matrix array has been successfully constructed, where the devices exhibit comparable properties, with a production yield of 100% for 100 randomly tested devices. The average responsivity, external quantum efficiency and detectivity reach 249 A W-1, 76 350% and 1.15 × 1011 Jones, respectively, making the Te/Si devices among the best-performing 2D/3D heterojunction photodetectors. On the whole, this study has established that PLD is a promising technique for producing high-quality Te nanofilms with good scalability, and the Te/Si 2D/3D heterojunction provides a promising platform for implementing high-performance ultra-broadband photoelectronic technologies.

High-performance hierarchical O-SnS/I-ZnIn2S4 photodetectors by leveraging the synergy of optical regulation and band tailoring.

Low light absorption and limited carrier lifetime are critical obstacles inhibiting further performance improvement of 2D layered material (2DLM) based photodetectors, while scalable fabrication is an ongoing challenge prior to commercialization from the lab to market. Herein, wafer-scale SnS/ZIS hierarchical nanofilms, where out-of-plane SnS (O-SnS) is modified onto in-plane ZIS (I-ZIS), have been achieved by pulsed-laser deposition. The derived O-SnS/I-ZIS photodetector exhibits markedly boosted sensitivity as compared to a pristine ZIS device. The synergy of multiple functionalities contributes to the dramatic improvement, including the pronounced light-trapping effect of O-SnS by multiple scattering, the high-efficiency spatial separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs by a type-II staggered band alignment and the promoted carrier transport enabled by the tailored electronic structure of ZIS. Of note, the unique architecture of O-SnS/I-ZIS can considerably expedite the carrier dynamics, where O-SnS promotes the electron transfer from SnS to ZIS whilst the I-ZIS enables high-speed electron circulation. In addition, the interlayer transition enables the bridging of the effective optical window to telecommunication wavelengths. Moreover, monolithic integration of arrayed devices with satisfactory device-to-device variability has been encompassed and a proof-of-concept imaging application is demonstrated. On the whole, this study depicts a fascinating functional coupling architecture toward implementing chip-scale integrated optoelectronics.