Tailoring the height of ultrathin PbS nanosheets and their application as field-effect transistors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how tuning the height of ultrathin PbS nanosheets affects their electronic properties and performance as field-effect transistors, enabling customizable low-cost electronic components.

Contribution

It introduces a method to control nanosheet height via ligand concentration, impacting their electronic behavior and device performance.

Findings

Nanosheet height can be tuned from 2 to over 20 nm.

Electronic properties are significantly affected by nanosheet confinement.

Transistor performance parameters are adjustable over a large range.

Abstract

Two-dimensional, solution-processable semiconductor materials are anticipated to be used in low-cost electronic applications, such as transistors and solar cells. Here, lead sulfide nanosheets with a lateral size of several microns are synthesized and it is shown how their height can be tuned by the variation of the ligand concentrations. As a consequence of the adjustability of the nanosheets' height between 2 to more than 20 nm charge carriers are in confinement, which has a decisive impact on their electronic properties. This is demonstrated by their use as conduction channel in a field-effect transistor. The experiments show that the performance in terms of current, On/Off ratio, and sub-threshold swing is tunable over a large range.