Solution-grown BiI/BiI3 van der Waals heterostructures for sensitive X-ray detection

Renzhong Zhuang; Songhua Cai; Zengxia Mei; Huili Liang; Ningjiu Zhao; Haoran Mu; Wenzhi Yu; Yan Jiang; Jian Yuan; Shuping Lau; Shiming Deng; Mingyue Han; Peng Jin; Cailin Wang; Guangyu Zhang; Shenghuang Lin

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-37297-z

Solution-grown BiI/BiI₃ van der Waals heterostructures for sensitive X-ray detection

Nat Commun. 2023 Mar 23;14(1):1621. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37297-z.

Authors

Renzhong Zhuang^{1

2}, Songhua Cai³, Zengxia Mei¹, Huili Liang¹, Ningjiu Zhao¹, Haoran Mu¹, Wenzhi Yu^{1

4}, Yan Jiang¹, Jian Yuan¹, Shuping Lau³, Shiming Deng⁵, Mingyue Han¹, Peng Jin⁶, Cailin Wang¹, Guangyu Zhang^{7

8}, Shenghuang Lin⁹

Affiliations

¹ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, 523808, Dongguan, Guangdong, P. R. China.
² Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Welding Quality Intelligent Evaluation, Longyan University, Longyan, Fujian, P. R. China.
³ Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hunghom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, P. R. China.
⁴ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, 100190, Beijing, P. R. China.
⁵ HAMAMATSU Photonics (China) Co., LTD., 100020, Beijing, P. R. China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, College of Optical Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
⁷ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, 523808, Dongguan, Guangdong, P. R. China. gyzhang@sslab.org.cn.
⁸ Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, 100190, Beijing, P. R. China. gyzhang@sslab.org.cn.
⁹ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, 523808, Dongguan, Guangdong, P. R. China. linshenghuang@sslab.org.cn.

Abstract

X-ray detectors must be operated at minimal doses to reduce radiation health risks during X-ray security examination or medical inspection, therefore requiring high sensitivity and low detection limits. Although organolead trihalide perovskites have rapidly emerged as promising candidates for X-ray detection due to their low cost and remarkable performance, these materials threaten the safety of the human body and environment due to the presence of lead. Here we present the realization of highly sensitive X-ray detectors based on an environmentally friendly solution-grown thick BiI/BiI₃/BiI (Bi_xI_y) van der Waals heterostructure. The devices exhibit anisotropic X-ray detection response with a sensitivity up to 4.3 × 10⁴ μC Gy^-1 cm^-2 and a detection limit as low as 34 nGy s^-1. At the same time, our Bi_xI_y detectors demonstrate high environmental and hard radiation stabilities. Our work motivates the search for new van der Waals heterostructure classes to realize high-performance X-ray detectors and other optoelectronic devices without employing toxic elements.