Operable persistent photoconductivity of Bi2S3 nested nano-networks.

Recently, hierarchical nanostructures have attracted increasing attention because of their large specific surface area and abundant physical characteristics. Here we propose a hierarchical Bi2S3 nested nano-network (Bi2S3-3N) with an excellent thermally-stable lattice structure, which is prepared by topotactic transformation. Experimental results revealed that for the first time, Bi2S3-3N possesses an interesting nature of the repetitively-operable persistent photoconductivity, which is believed to stem from the releasing of photo-stimulated carriers captured by deep-level traps. This work shows great potential of topotactic transformed Bi2S3 hierarchical nanostructures in practical applications like functional porous nanoarchitectures, bistable optical-switching, photo detectors, memory, etc.