High-mobility semiconducting ultrathin films form the basis of modern electronics, and may lead to the scalable fabrication of highly performing devices. Because the ultrathin limit cannot be reached for traditional semiconductors, identifying new two-dimensional materials with both high carrier mobility and a large electronic bandgap is a pivotal goal of fundamental research. However, air-stable ultrathin semiconducting materials with superior performances remain elusive at present. Here, we report ultrathin films of non-encapsulated layered BiOSe, grown by chemical vapour deposition, which demonstrate excellent air stability and high-mobility semiconducting behaviour. We observe bandgap values of ∼0.8 eV, which are strongly dependent on the film thickness due to quantum-confinement effects. An ultrahigh Hall mobility value of >20,000 cm V s is measured in as-grown BiOSe nanoflakes at low temperatures. This value is comparable to what is observed in graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition and at the LaAlO-SrTiO interface, making the detection of Shubnikov-de Haas quantum oscillations possible. Top-gated field-effect transistors based on BiOSe crystals down to the bilayer limit exhibit high Hall mobility values (up to 450 cm V s), large current on/off ratios (>10) and near-ideal subthreshold swing values (∼65 mV dec) at room temperature. Our results make BiOSe a promising candidate for future high-speed and low-power electronic applications.

Two-dimensional (2D) layered hybrid perovskites of (RNH)PbX (R is an alkyl and X is a halide) have been recently synthesized and exhibited rich optical properties including fluorescence and exciton effects. However, few studies on transport and optoelectronic measurements of individual 2D perovskite crystals have been reported, presumably owing to the instability issue during electronic device fabrications. Here we report the first photodetector based on individual 2D (CHNH)PbBr perovskite crystals, built with the protection and top contact of graphene film. Both a high responsivity (∼2100 A/W) and extremely low dark current (∼10 A) are achieved with a design of interdigital graphene electrodes. Our study paves the way to build high-performance optoelectronic devices based on the emerging 2D single-crystal perovskite materials.

Non-neutral layered crystals, another group of two-dimensional (2D) materials that lack a well-defined van der Waals (vdWs) gap, are those that form strong chemical bonds in-plane but display weak out-of-plane electrostatic interactions, exhibiting intriguing properties for the bulk counterpart. However, investigation of the properties of their atomically thin counterpart are very rare presumably due to the absence of efficient ways to achieve large-area high-quality 2D crystals. Here, high-mobility atomically thin BiOSe, a typical non-neutral layered crystal without a standard vdWs gap, was synthesized via a facial chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, showing excellent controllability for thickness, domain size, nucleation site, and crystal-phase evolution. Atomically thin, large single crystals of BiOSe with lateral size up to ∼200 μm and thickness down to a bilayer were obtained. Moreover, optical and electrical properties of the CVD-grown 2D BiOSe crystals were investigated, displaying a size-tunable band gap upon thinning and an ultrahigh Hall mobility of >20000 cm V s at 2 K. Our results on the high-mobility 2D BiOSe semiconductor may activate the synthesis and related fundamental research of other non-neutral 2D materials.