Growth of Ultraflat PbI2 Nanoflakes by Solvent Evaporation Suppression for High-Performance UV Photodetectors

2D lead iodide (PbI2) is attracting great interest due to its great potential in the application of UV photodetectors. In this work, a facile solution-based method is developed to synthesize ultraflat PbI2 nanoflakes for high-performance UV photodetectors. By maintaining at proximate room temperature and adding an evaporation suppression solvent for slow-rate crystal growth, high-quality PbI2 nanoflakes with an ultraflat surface are obtained. The UV photodetectors based on 2D PbI2 nanoflakes exhibit a high photoresponsivity of 0.51 A W-1, a high detectivity of 4.0 x 10(10) Jones, a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 168.9%, and a rapid response speed including a rise time of 14.1 ms and a decay time of 31.0 ms. The balanced and excellent photodetector performance of these devices paves the road for practical UV photodetection based on 2D PbI2 nanoflakes.