Tailoring the height of ultrathin PbS nanosheets and their application as field-effect transistors

Two-dimensional, solution-processable semiconductor materials are anticipated to be used in low-cost electronic applications, such as transistors and solar cells. Here, lead sulfide nanosheets with a lateral size of several micrometers are synthesized and it is shown how their height can be tuned by the variation of the ligand concentrations. As a consequence of the adjustability of the nanosheets' height between 4 to more than 20 nm charge carriers are in confinement, which has a decisive impact on their electronic properties. This is demonstrated by their use as conduction channel in a field-effect transistor. The experiments show that the performance in terms of current, On/Off ratio, and sub-threshold swing is tunable over a large range.