Conductive transparent V2CTx (MXene) films

To date, the vast majority of research on the emerging 2D material MXene has been conducted on Ti3C2Tx. Herein, we report the first study on the optoelectronic properties of V2CTx MXene, and its processing into flexible, transparent films. Films were prepared from aqueous colloidal suspensions produced using tetrabutylammonium hydroxide, TBAOH, as the dispersant. After annealing, the DC conductivities, sigma(dc), of the thicker filtered and thinner spin cast films were both 3250 +/- 100 S/cm. The optical absorption spectrum of 10 nm films was found to be free of distinct transitions throughout the 500 to 2700 nm range. The absorption coefficient at a wavelength of 550 nm was determined to be approximate to 1.22 +/- 0.05 x 10(5) cm(-1), which renders it more than twice as transparent as Ti-based MXenes. As a result, a common figure of merit for transparent conductors-of the ratio of the DC to optical conductivities-of 6.5 is calculated for the V2CTx films.