Doping in BiOCuS Material

Mixed-anion materials are on the frontier of modern research since they present an additional tool to control electronic and structural properties as a function of the anion. In fact, those materials have demonstrated outstanding potential for applications that include batteries, superconductivity, thermoelectrics, electronics, and magnetism. AXCuQ (A=Bi, Ln and X=O or A=Ca, Sr, Ba, and X=F; Q=S, Se, Te) heterolayered anion-mixed structures (HAMS) consist of fluorite [AX]⁺ and antifluorite [CuQ]^– slabs. This talk will investigate how vacancy engineering in HAMS affects material properties. Using solid state reactions and mechanosynthesis coupled with aliovalent doping of BiOCuS, we targeted Bi_1–xSr_xOCuS_1–d and BiO_1–xF_xCu_1–dS compositions. The first half of the talk will focus on synthesis of those materials, their structural characterization, and doping limits while in the second half, material properties of doped compositions as a function of dopant concentration will be discussed.