Semiconducting and Plasmonic Copper Phosphide Platelets

Abstract

Designing different nanomaterials with new and useful properties required for developing day-to-day technologies has remained in the forefront of research for decades. Among these, semiconducting, light-emitting, plasmonic, photovoltaic, and magnetic properties are in the frontline. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Furthermore, materials with rectification properties remain one of the most demanding materials in recent times. [1][2][3][4][14][15][16][17] Very recently, semiconducting nanomaterials with tunable plasmonic absorption properties have also been reported; [5][6][7][8][18][19][20][21][22] these may further expand the already widespread applications of these nanomaterials in diverse research fields, including both in biology and device-based technologies. Hence, materials with several of these new properties are in demand for their implementation in different developing modern technologies.For designing nanomaterials, the colloidal synthetic method has remained unique and unbeatable to date. However, the classical mechanistic approach for fabricating these materials following this solution phase synthesis is more effective for tuning over a smaller range of dimensions, and produces mostly smaller-sized nanocrystals. Efforts to get larger-sized nanocrystals lead either to a wider size distribution or precipitation. Generally, this has been observed for 0D, 1D, or 2D crystal-growth processes. [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] Hence, designing of surface-ligand-capped nanomaterials with a wide range of size tunability that maintains their narrow size distribution throughout still remains challenging and requires more advanced synthetic methods.Confining the growth to 2D, we explore here the fabrication of nano-to microscale-tunable platelet-shaped Cu I phosphide as one of the upcoming materials associated with several new properties. This shows the band-edge absorption in the NIR spectral window, tunable surface plasmonic absorption in mid-IR window and also has the rectification properties required for possible exploration as photovoltaic material. Synthesis with such a wide tunable size range (ca. 1000 nm) has been performed by controlling the number of nucleations followed by rapid growth along two feasible directions. In the entire tunable regime, the size distribution remains narrow; the platelets maintain a hexagonal shape and retain single crystallinity. Moreover, unlike reported nanoplatelets made from various materials, these show several intriguing patterns of MoirØ fringes in their overlapping regions on the TEM grid. Finally, these p-type semiconducting platelets are explored to study their, photocurrent, photoresponse and photovoltaic activity under whitelight illumination.For the synthesis of copper phosphide, phosphine gas generated ex situ [31] has been explored as the phosphide source. This also helps to carry out the reaction at relatively moderate temperatures (200-230 8C). Using CuCl as Cu precursor, a mixture of alkylamine and trioctylphosphineoxide as solvent, and trioctylpho...

Resource-Efficient High-Yield Ionothermal Synthesis of Microcrystalline Cu3–xP

“…Recently, de Trizio et al identified the 6 c Wyckoff positions as being most favorable for vacancies based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations . They concluded that vacancies should form even in Cu 3 P, which agrees with the intrinsic sub-stoichiometric nature of this compound as proposed by Schlenger et al and Olofsson. , On this basis it seems appropriate to generally refer to this compound as Cu 3– x P. It has been suggested that these vacancies are the origin of the specific plasmon dynamics of Cu 3– x P. , …”

“…There are different reports about the band gap of Cu 3– x P in literature. According to optical and scanning tunneling spectroscopy, the gap is found between 0.8 and 1.3 eV. Recently, p -type semiconducting behavior was claimed for Cu 3– x P nanoparticles .…”

Photocatalytic Au–Bi2S3 Heteronanostructures

“…The design of new functional materials with useful materials properties required for various technological applications has remained in forefront research for decades. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Among these, heterostructured nanomaterials having noble metal and semiconductor junctions are categorized as one of the leading materials. [3,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Apart from having the individual properties of both of the constituents, here, the interaction between quantum confined electronic states of semiconductor and dielectric confined electronic modes in the metal domain, leads to the generation of new optoelectronic properties.…”

Photocatalytic Au–Bi2S3 Heteronanostructures

“…The design of new functional materials with useful materials properties required for various technological applications has remained in forefront research for decades 1–10. Among these, heterostructured nanomaterials having noble metal and semiconductor junctions are categorized as one of the leading materials 3.…”