Electrical conductivity of p-type BiOCl nanosheets

High quality BiOCl nanosheets were fabricated using facile, room temperature hydrolysis of Bi(NO3)3 and HCl. The resulting nanosheets had dimensions of 500 nm with the exposed {001} facet. The band gap of the nanosheets was found to be 3.34 eV with conduction and valence band edges at −3.63 eV and −6.97 eV with respect to vacuum, respectively. The electrical conductivity of drop-cast BiOCl nanosheets was measured between aluminum patterned electrodes as a function of temperature and oxygen partial pressure (pO2). The activation energy for conduction in BiOCl was found to be 862 meV in the temperature range of 300–425 K and below 1000 mbar. The electrical conductivity varied with pO2, indicating σ ∝ pO21/4.05 and σ ∝ pO21/32 for low and sub atmospheric pressures, respectively. A prototypical device for low temperature (425 K) O2 sensing was demonstrated.