Controllable epitaxial growth of GeSe₂nanostructures and nonlinear optical properties

Germanium diselenide (GeSe₂) has emerged as a new member of anisotropic two-dimensional (2D) materials and gained increasing attention because of its excellent air stability, wide band gap and unique anisotropic properties, which exhibits promising applications in the fields of electronics, optoelectronics and polarized photodetection. However, the controllable epitaxial growth of large-scale and high-quality GeSe₂nanostructures to date remains a big challenge. Herein, GeSe₂nanofilms with lateral size up to centimeter scale have been successfully prepared on mica substrate by employing chemical vapor deposition technique. Experimental results demonstrated that hydrogen is the key factor for the controllable growth of GeSe₂nanostructures and GeSe₂-based heterostructures. Corresponding growth mechanism was proposed based on systematical characterizations. The nonlinear optical properties of as-prepared GeSe₂were investigated by employing open-aperture z-scan technique exhibiting significant saturable and reverse saturable absorption behaviors at wavelengths of 400 nm and 800 nm, respectively. This study provides a new and robust route for fabricating GeSe₂nanostructures and 2D heterostructures, which will benefit the development of GeSe₂-based nonlinear optical and optoelectronic devices.