While it is commonly agreed that very few new binary phases (compound materials comprised of two elements of the periodic table) are still yet to be reported, BGU researchers have recently discovered a new binary phase of tin sulfide (SnS), a potentially useful compound semiconductor material. The new phase is based on the rocksalt structure, and has been described in an article published in the March 11th issue of the prestigious journal Nano Letters of the American Chemical Society.
The new material was discovered in the lab of Prof. Yuval Golan of BGU's Department of Materials Engineering and the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology by graduate students Alexander Rabkin and Ran Eitan Abutbul and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) specialist Dr. Vladimir Ezersky, in the form of tetrahedron-shaped nanoscale particles that are coated with a thin organic layer of alkyamine surfactant molecules.
Due to their miniscule size and minute amounts, the only way to elucidate their structure was by using electron diffraction in the TEM, a technique mastered by Dr. Louisa Meshi and graduate student Shmuel Samucha, who carried out unique precession electron diffraction characterization that allowed accurate determination of the atomic positions of the new structure. Preliminary measurements show that the optical properties of the new phase are different from conventional SnS, opening avenues for new device applications based on this new material. Intensive work is underway synthesizing the new phase material to achieve larger quantity and yield.
Link to abstract
