A facile microwave-assisted synthesis of bismuth copper oxytelluride for optoelectronic and photodetection applications

Abstract

Over the last few years, quaternary-based bismuth copper oxychalcogenide BiCuOCh (Ch = S, Se, and Te) materials have caught much attention due to their exciting optoelectronic, thermo-electric, and semiconducting applications. Bismuth copper oxytelluride (BiCuOTe), among the other family members, possesses the highest ZT value. Though many studies are already done on this 2D material, most are based only on thermoelectric properties or first principle calculations. Very little attention has been given to exploring other potential characteristics of this material. In this work, we have synthesized BiCuOTe using the facile “Microwave (MW) assisted method,” which has not yet been reported for preparing this material. BiCuOTe samples were prepared with varying MW powers at a fixed irradiation time. A few sharp and well-defined diffraction peaks appeared from the crystallographic studies, which are in good accordance with the previously reported phases. All the prepared samples show nanosheet-like morphology. The diffuse reflectance spectroscopy technique was used to study the optical nature and calculate the band gap energy of this material. The band gap observed for this material falls in the range of 2–2.6 eV, and the broad photoluminescence emission spectrum with peaks centered around yellow–red regions makes this material suitable for various optoelectronic applications. Results from the photo-response study suggest the potential applicability of this material as a photodetector.