Booming development and present advances of two dimensional MXenes for photodetectors

Abstract

The photodetectors are a semiconductor device with photoelectric conversion function, which has an indispensable role in many fields such as optical communication, biological sensing and environmental monitoring, and greatly promotes the development of nano-electronics and nano-optoelectronics. Since the advent of graphene, two-dimensional (2D) materials have been widely concerned by scientists. With excellent electronic and optical properties, 2D materials are widely used in optoelectronic devices. At present, the traditional photodetectors have many disadvantages and cannot be widely applied, so the photodetectors based on the 2D materials comes into being. In the family of 2D materials, there is a new group of typical materials that are transition metal carbides, nitrides, and carbon nitrides, called MXenes. They have unique crystal structure, excellent electronic, optical and thermal properties, large specific surface area, good electrical conductivity and hydrophilicity and other excellent properties, which have attracted extensive research by scientists. And they have been used in catalysis, energy storage, sensors, capacitors, battery electrodes, biomedicine and photodetectors. Based on such novel 2D materials as MXenes, the photodetectors based on MXenes are reviewed in this paper. In this review, we introduce the types, structures, properties and preparation methods of MXenes, and focus on their applications in the field of photodetectors. Finally, the current challenges of MXenes and future research on novel high-performance photodetectors based on MXenes are discussed and some views are presented.