Advances in Chalcogenide Crystal Growth: Flux and Solution Syntheses, and Approaches for Postsynthetic Modifications

Chalcogenide-containing materials are important for the semiconductor and thermoelectric industries and are up-and-coming materials for superconductors, catalysis, and battery applications. Challenges in the synthesis of those materials emerge from the chalcogen’s volatility and from the tendencies of chalcogenide materials to react with even trace quantities of oxygen. Nonetheless, many techniques have been applied to the growth of chalcogenide single crystals, which are convenient for structure determinations and intrinsic property measurements. In the current perspective, we highlight flux crystal growth, solution syntheses, and a novel approach, single-crystal-to-single-crystal modifications, as convenient routes for the preparation of single-crystal chalcogenide materials and emphasize recent advances in those synthetic techniques that have resulted in novel chalcogenide materials classes and that exhibit important properties.