Selenide

Abstract: Monolayer iron selenide grown on SrTiO3 has recently gained attention due to suggestive evidence it superconducts at high temperature. In situ electrical transport measurements now reveal a transition temperature above 100 K.

Abstract: Solar cells based on inorganic absorbers, such as Si, GaAs, CdTe and Cu(In,Ga)Se2, permit a high device efficiency and stability. The crystals’ three-dimensional structure means that dangling bonds inevitably exist at the grain boundaries (GBs), which significantly degrades the device performance via recombination losses. Thus, the growth of single-crystalline materials or the passivation of defects at the GBs is required to address this problem, which introduces an added processing complexity and cost. Here we report that antimony selenide (Sb2Se3)—a simple, non-toxic and low-cost material with an optimal solar bandgap of ∼1.1 eV—exhibits intrinsically benign GBs because of its one-dimensional crystal structure. Using a simple and fast (∼1 μm min–1) rapid thermal evaporation process, we oriented crystal growth perpendicular to the substrate, and produced Sb2Se3 thin-film solar cells with a certified device efficiency of 5.6%. Our results suggest that the family of one-dimensional crystals, including Sb2Se3, SbSeI and Bi2S3, show promise in photovoltaic applications. Materials with a one-dimensional crystal structure, such as antimony selenide, show considerable potential for making efficient thin-film solar cells.

Abstract: Efficient oxygen-evolution reaction catalysts are required for the cost-effective generation of solar fuels. Metal selenides have been reported as promising oxygen-evolution catalysts; however, their active forms are yet to be elucidated. Here we show that a representative selenide catalyst, nickel selenide, is entirely converted into nickel hydroxide under oxygen-evolution conditions. This result indicates that metal selenides are unstable during oxygen evolution, and the in situ generated metal oxides are responsible for their activity. This knowledge inspired us to synthesize nanostructured nickel iron diselenide, a hitherto unknown metal selenide, and to use it as a templating precursor to a highly active nickel iron oxide catalyst. This selenide-derived oxide catalyses oxygen evolution with an overpotential of only 195 mV for 10 mA cm(-2). Our work underscores the importance of identifying the active species of oxygen-evolution catalysts, and demonstrates how such knowledge can be applied to develop better catalysts.

Abstract: Recently, two-dimensional layers of transition metal dichalcogenides, such as MoS2, WS2, MoSe2, and WSe2, have attracted much attention for their potential applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. The selenide analogues of MoS2 and WS2 have smaller band gaps and higher electron mobilities, making them more appropriate for practical devices. However, reports on scalable growth of high quality transition metal diselenide layers and studies of their properties have been limited. Here, we demonstrate the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of uniform MoSe2 monolayers under ambient pressure, resulting in large single crystalline islands. The photoluminescence intensity and peak position indicates a direct band gap of 1.5 eV for the MoSe2 monolayers. A back-gated field effect transistor based on MoSe2 monolayer shows n-type channel behavior with average mobility of 50 cm2 V–1 s–1, a value much higher than the 4–20 cm2 V–1 s–1 reported for vapor phase grown MoS2.