Tailoring of Layered Bismuth-Based Materials: Advanced Functionalities for Environment, Energy, Photonics, Electronics, and Biomedicine.

Abstract

Layered bismuth-based materials exhibit exceptional potential for a wide range of advanced functional applications, enabled by their versatile structural chemistry and tailorable physicochemical properties. This review begins by summarizing their fundamental structural classifications, including layered bismuth oxides, layered bismuth chalcogenides, and other layered bismuth compounds, along with their intrinsic physicochemical properties. It then discusses strategies for precise property modulation, such as atomic-scale structural engineering, bandgap tailoring, polarization control, and heterointerface engineering. Focusing on their diverse and rapidly expanding utility, the article highlights applications in environmental remediation, energy conversion and storage, biomedical systems, and next-generation electron devices, including post-Moore core electronics, topological and quantum devices, chip-enabling technologies, as well as the construction of high-performance sensing, micro-energy, neuromorphic computing, and heterogeneously integrated systems. Key challenges and future directions toward practical implementation are also analyzed. In summary, this review provides a comprehensive guide for the rational, application-oriented design of these materials across interdisciplinary fields.