Graphitic Carbon Nitride-based Thin Films as New Functional Materials

石墨化碳氮化物(GCN)是一种非常有兴趣的物质，因为它只由碳和氮组成，并且对分解水显示出很高的光催化活性。到目前为止，GCN材料已经被制成粉末并用于这些目的。如果GCN材料以薄膜形式提供，人们可以获得什么好处？考虑到导电聚合物的科学和技术不会出现，如果聚乙炔只是粉末状的话，答案是明确的。尽管电影有许多优势，但对GCN电影的研究仍处于早期阶段。2016年，我们课题组报道了通过气相沉积聚合可以获得自支撑的GCN薄膜样品。GCN薄膜在水蒸气存在下表现出驱动行为。为了通过掺入硼来调整GCN薄膜的能隙，我们团队开发了一种用于半导体的掺杂策略。然而，我们只得到了能带隙大于2.7 eV的绝缘体材料。为了利用可见光或太阳光，需要一种具有较小能带隙的材料。在这里，我介绍了用两区化学气相沉积(CVD)方法合成碳杂化GCN(GCN-C)薄膜。所制备的GCN-C薄膜具有优异的机械性能、宽广的光吸收、高电导率和高开关比光电探测器，使其在电子应用中具有广阔的应用前景。这些发现代表着GCN薄膜作为电子材料领域的重大进步。

Graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) is a substance of great interest because it is composed only of carbon and nitrogen and shows a high photocatalytic activity for the splitting of water. So far, GCN materials have been obtained as powders and utilized for these purposes. If GCN materials are available in film form, what benefits one can obtain? The answer is clear considering that the science and technology of conductive polymers would not have emerged if polyacetylene was available only in the powdery form. Although films have many advantages, research on GCN films is still in the early stages. In 2016, our group reported that self-supporting GCN film samples could be obtained by vapor deposition polymerization. The GCN film showed actuation behaviors in the presence of water vapor. To tune the energy band gap of GCN films by incorporating boron, our group has developed a doping strategy for semiconductors. However, we only obtained materials with energy band gaps larger than 2.7 eV, which are insulators. To utilize visible light or sunlight, a material with a smaller energy band gap is necessary. Here I present the synthesis of carbon hybridized GCN (GCN-C) films via a two-zone chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The resulting GCN-C films exhibit outstanding mechanical properties, broad optical absorption, high electrical conductivity, and high on/off ratio photodetectors, making them promising materials for electronic applications. These findings represent a significant advancement in the field of GCN thin films as electronic materials.