• Acta Photonica Sinica
  • Vol. 51, Issue 10, 1019002 (2022)
Yanqing GE*, Yuqi LIU, Chunhui LU, Mingwei LUO, Taotao HAN, Yixuan ZHOU, and Xinlong XU
Author Affiliations
  • Institute of Photonics & Photon-technology,School of Physics,Northwest University,Xi'an 710127,China
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    DOI: 10.3788/gzxb20225110.1019002 Cite this Article
    Yanqing GE, Yuqi LIU, Chunhui LU, Mingwei LUO, Taotao HAN, Yixuan ZHOU, Xinlong XU. Third-order Nonlinear Optical Properties of Vertically Aligned SnS2 Films(Invited)[J]. Acta Photonica Sinica, 2022, 51(10): 1019002 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Two-dimensional (2D) layered metal dichalcogenides have attracted extensive attention due to their unique physicochemical properties, such as high carrier mobility, strong light-matter interaction and tunable band gap. Tin disulfide (SnS2), as an emerging 2D layered metal dichalcogenides with a narrow band gap (2.0~2.6 eV), has a CDI2 type crystal structure and the layered structure is formed by a stack of sandwiched S-Sn-S planes connected by van der Waals force. Furthermore, SnS2 is non-toxic, low-cost, and storage abundant, which meets the need of industrial production of electronic and optoelectronic devices. It also exhibits excellent photoelectric responses such as high absorption coefficient (α0~105~106 cm-1), large on/off ratio (>106), high carrier mobility (230 cm2 V-1S-1), and so on, which ensures its rapid development in photoelectric applications such as photodetectors, solar cells and photocatalysis. However, so far, research on the nonlinear optical properties of SnS2 films is still in infancy. In the early stage, SnS2 was prepared by liquid phase exfoliation technique to firstly explore its nonlinear optical properties. The SnS2 films always show saturable absorption under the lower photon energy than band gap. This saturable absorption can be explained by some surface defects, coming from the growth process. As such, many novel 2D semiconductors such as WS2 and MoS2 with S vacancy defect also have been demonstrated and successfully applied into mode-locked, Q-switched, and other photonic devices. The defects can capture excitons, electrons, and holes to modulate nonlinear absorption. Thus, it is necessary to confirm the defect type and then systematically analyze the nonlinear optical response of SnS2 films. Compared with horizontally aligned 2D film, vertically aligned materials have larger specific surface area and exposed edge sites, thus resulting in higher light absorption characteristics. Furthermore, the active edges of MoS2 have shown a strong resonant nonlinear optical susceptibility and the vertically aligned WS2 shows higher modulation performance. Thus, it is crucial and meaningful to prepare vertically aligned SnS2 layers, which are promising to exhibit an excellent nonlinear optical property. Recently, vertically aligned SnS2 layers have been successfully synthesized by hydrothermal method. However, impurity and surface roughness would provide a large contribution for the nonlinear scattering and result in sophistication in the mechanism analysis of nonlinear optical response. Herein, it is noteworthy that the controllable synthesis of vertically aligned SnS2 layers is also the key to study the nonlinear optical response. Compared with liquid phase exfoliation method and hydrothermal method, Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) has been demonstrated as an effective and general method to prepare 2D film in large-area. In this paper, large-area SnS2 films are prepared by CVD method using SnO and S powders as precursors and c-plane sapphire is selected as target substrate. The SnS2 nanosheets are uniform and well-aligned on the c-plane sapphire substrate characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The average width of nanosheets is approximately 400 nm and the thickness of nanosheets is about 750 nm. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy confirm the successful preparation of high-quality vertically aligned SnS2 film. The effect of pump power on the nonlinear optical response of vertically aligned SnS2 film is investigated at 800 nm by using open/close aperture (OA/CA) Z-scan technique. The results show that the vertically aligned SnS2 film exhibits an obvious saturable absorption. This can be due to the S-vacancy defect single induced photon absorption and the corresponding defects are characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The calculated results show that the third-order nonlinear absorption coefficient (β) of vertically aligned SnS2 film is 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than that of previously reported 2D nanosheets, and the absolute value of β decreases with the pump intensity, which is mainly contributed to the Pauli blocking effect. With the increase of incident laser intensity, electrons in the valence band are continuously excited to the defect state and transmitted to the conduction band until electrons and holes occupy nearly half of the photon energy in the valence band and conduction band. Due to Pauli blocking effect, the interband transitions are blocked and the saturable absorption response takes place. At this time, the relationship between total absorption can be expressed as αI=α0/(1+I/IS). More importantly, the modulation depth of vertically aligned SnS2 is up to 50%, which provides a reference for designing high-performance nonlinear photonic devices. In addition, the nonlinear refractive index (n2)of SnS2 film grown vertically is also measured, and the values of n2 also decrease with the pump intensity, which is mainly related to the free carriers and bound electrons of the material. Meanwhile, the n2for vertically aligned SnS2 film is comparable to previously reported 2D nanosheets, such as WS2, WSe2, MoS2, MoSe2, and MoTe2. Based on the above-analyzed results, we find that vertically aligned SnS2 film has a great potential in the design and manufacture of nonlinear photonic devices.
    Yanqing GE, Yuqi LIU, Chunhui LU, Mingwei LUO, Taotao HAN, Yixuan ZHOU, Xinlong XU. Third-order Nonlinear Optical Properties of Vertically Aligned SnS2 Films(Invited)[J]. Acta Photonica Sinica, 2022, 51(10): 1019002
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