Generalised optical printing of photocurable metal chalcogenides

Abstract

Optical three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques have attracted tremendous attention owing to their applicability to mask-less additive manufacturing, which enables the cost-effective and straightforward creation of patterned architectures. However, despite their potential use as alternatives to traditional lithography, the printable materials obtained from these methods are strictly limited to photocurable resins, thereby restricting the functionality of the printed objects and their application areas. Herein, we report a generalised direct optical printing technique to obtain functional metal chalcogenides via digital light processing. We developed universally applicable photocurable chalcogenidometallate inks that could be directly used to create 2D patterns or micrometre-thick 2.5D architectures of various sizes and shapes. Our process is applicable to a diverse range of functional metal chalcogenides for compound semiconductors and 2D transition-metal dichalcogenides. We then demonstrated the feasibility of our technique by fabricating and evaluating a micro-scale thermoelectric generator bearing tens of patterned semiconductors. Our approach shows potential for simple and cost-effective architecturing of functional inorganic materials.

Phase-Change Memory from Molecular Tellurides

“…For instance, the liquid ink PCM methodology can be readily extended by admixing non-stoichiometric dopants, such as In or Si, or mixed chalcogenides (GeTe x Se 1−x or Ge x Sn 1−x Se) to tailor crystallization kinetics by several orders of magnitude. 9 We also envision inkjet printing or layers patterned by optical lithography 53 or direct light printing 54 as inexpensive fabrication methods for phase-change memory. Furthermore, advanced computing architectures could be unlocked by infilling high-aspect-ratio devices or exploring the scaling limits by infilling memory cells in the sub-10 nm size regime.…”

Lattice Architectures for Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

“…Due to high binder content in low-viscosity DLP inks, binder burnoff is typically a long process with slow ramping rates. To tackle the standing issue of densification in 3D-printed thermoelectrics, inorganic sintering aids, ,, lower-dimensional thermoelectric materials, organometallic precursor solutions, , or high laser power melting , can be utilized. It should be noted that different AM techniques and printing directions may result in varying densities and mechanical properties for the same lattice design, and it is a research area yet to be explored.…”

Fabrication of Sb2S3/Sb2Se3 heterostructure for potential resistive switching applications

“…The synergistic effects of the heterostructure leverage the complementary properties of both materials, resulting in enhanced performance in terms of switching speed, improved endurance, and higher on/off ratio [18]. These features are crucial for the development of efficient resistive switching devices [19][20][21]. The heterostructure enables faster, more stable resistive switching with lower power consumption [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”