Two-Dimensional Hydroxyl-Functionalized and Carbon-Deficient Scandium Carbide, ScC_xOH, a Direct Band Gap Semiconductor

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted intense attention in nanoscience and nanotechnology due to their outstanding properties. Among these materials, the emerging family of 2D transition metal carbides, carbonitrides, and nitrides (referred to as MXenes) stands out because of the vast available chemical space for tuning materials chemistry and surface termination, offering opportunities for property tailoring. Specifically, semiconducting properties are needed to enable utilization in optoelectronics, but direct band gaps are experimentally challenging to achieve in these 2D carbides. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of 2D hydroxyl-functionalized and carbon-deficient scandium carbide, namely, ScCxOH, by selective etching of a layered parent ScAl3C3 compound. The 2D configuration is determined as a direct band gap semiconductor, with an experimentally measured band gap approximated at 2.5 eV. Furthermore, this ScCxOH-based device exhibits excellent photoresponse in the ultraviolet–visible light region (responsivity of 0.125 A/W at 360 nm/10 V, and quantum efficiency of 43%). Thus, this 2D ScCxOH direct band gap semiconductor may find applications in visible light detectors, photocatalytic chemistry, and optoelectronic devices.