Issue 7, 2024

Ion transport induced room-temperature insulator–metal transition in single-crystalline Cu2Se

Abstract

Cu2Se is a superionic conductor above 414 K, with ionic conductivities reaching that of molten salts. The superionic behavior results from hopping Cu ions between different crystallographic sites within the Se scaffold. However, the properties of Cu2Se below 414 K are far less known due to experimental limitations imposed by the bulk or polycrystalline samples that have been available so far. Here, we report the synthesis of ultra-thin, large-area single crystalline Cu2Se samples using a chemical vapor deposition method. The as-synthesized Cu2Se crystals exhibit optically and electrically detectable and controllable robust phases at room temperature and above. We demonstrate that Cu ion vacancies can be manipulated to induce an insulator–metal transition, which exhibits 6 orders of magnitude change in the electrical resistance of two terminal devices, accompanied by an optical change in the phase configuration. Our experiments show that the high mobility of the liquid-like Cu ion vacancies in Cu2Se causes macroscopic ordering in the Cu vacancies. Consequently, phase distribution over the crystals is not dictated by the diffusive motion of the ions but by the local energy minima formed due to the phase transition. As a result, long-range vacancy ordering of the crystal below 414 K becomes optically observable at a micrometer scale. This work demonstrates that Cu2Se could be a prototypical system where long-range ordering properties can be studied via electrical and optical methods.

Graphical abstract: Ion transport induced room-temperature insulator–metal transition in single-crystalline Cu2Se

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
03 jan 2024
Accepted
08 mei 2024
First published
09 mei 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale Horiz., 2024,9, 1137-1145

Ion transport induced room-temperature insulator–metal transition in single-crystalline Cu2Se

A. A. Suleiman, A. Parsi, M. Razeghi, U. Başçı, S. Oh, D. Pehlivanoğlu, H. Y. Jeong, K. Kang and T. S. Kasırga, Nanoscale Horiz., 2024, 9, 1137 DOI: 10.1039/D4NH00003J

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