Nanowerk September 22, 2020
Atomically thin materials face an ongoing challenge of scalability, hampering practical deployment despite their fascinating properties. Although tin monosulfide (SnS) displays properties of superior carrier mobility and large absorption coefficient at atomic thicknesses, the lack of successful synthesis techniques to prepare large‐area and stoichiometric atomically thin SnS layers has prevented exploration of these properties for versatile applications. Researchers in Australia printed SnS layers with thicknesses varying from a single unit cell (0.8 nm) to multiple stacked unit cells (≈1.8 nm) synthesized from metallic liquid tin, with lateral dimensions on the millimeter scale. They exhibit a broadband spectral response ranging from deep‐ultraviolet to near‐infrared with fast photodetection capabilities. For single‐unit‐cell‐thick layered SnS, the photodetectors show up to three orders of magnitude higher responsivity than commercial photodetectors at a room‐temperature operating wavelength of 660 nm. The research provides important technological implications for scalable applications in integrated optoelectronic circuits, sensing, and biomedical imaging…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE