Abstract
The prevalence of self-healing semiconductors is restricted to a few select cases, limiting understanding of the self-healing phenomenon. Herein, we report self-healing after photo-induced damage in antimony trichalcogenides and chalcoiodides, which are quasi-one-dimensional semiconductors with prospective applications in photovoltaics and electronic devices. We relate the self-healing to a photo-induced phase transition and the damaged state to a hidden phase from which the damaged semiconductors recover (self-heal). By using vibrational spectroscopy, we elucidate the intermediate species in the reaction. We suggest that the occurrence of bonding states at the bottom of the conduction band is central to promoting the hidden phase. Comparing four different materials with a similar crystal structure enables us to uncover the common structural feature that leads to the self-healing in these materials. Expanding the type and number of self-healing semiconductors, and uncovering the underlying solid-state reactions, will facilitate the development of self-healing electronic building blocks and devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 101298 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Cell Reports Physical Science |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Mar 2023 |
Funding
We are grateful to Ben-Gurion University for their support of this research through a start-up grant. We acknowledge the support of the Israel Science Foundation through grant no. 1428/20. S.B.K. was partially supported by the Kreitmann Fellowship. S.B.K. thanks Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India, for their academic support. P.C.P. thanks India’s Department of Science and Technology for providing research grants through the inspire faculty fellowship. L.H. acknowledges the support of the Irving and Cherna Moskowitz Center for Nano and Bio-Imaging at the Weizmann Institute of Science. We thank Dr. Sharon Hazan, Dr. Mariela Pavan, and Dr. Natalya Froumin of Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology for their assistance in Raman and XPS measurements.