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We report on THz emission in single-crystalline SnS2 in response to above bandgap excitation. Symmetry properties of THz generation suggest that its origin is an ultrafast surface shift current, a 2nd order nonlinear effect that can occur as a result of above-gap photoexcitation of a non-centrosymmetric semiconductor. Multilayer SnS2 can exist in several polytypes that differ in the layer stacking. Of those polytypes, 2H and 18R are centrosymmetric while 4H is not. While Raman spectroscopy suggests that the single crystalline SnS2 in our experiments is 2H, its THz emission has symmetry that are fully consistent with the P3m1 phase of 4H polytype. We hypothesize that the stacking disorder, where strain-free stacking faults that interrupt regions of 2H polytype, can break inversion symmetry and result in THz emission. These results lay the foundations for application of SnS2 as an efficient, stable, flexible THz source material, and highlight the use of THz spectroscopy as a sensitive tool for establishing symmetry properties of materials. 

GeS and GeSe are 2D semiconductors with band gaps in the near infrared and predicted high carrier mobility. We find that excitation with 800 nm pulses results in long-lived free photocarriers, persisting for hundreds of picoseconds, in GeS and GeSe noribbons. We also demonstrate that zerovalent Cu intercalation is an effective tool for tuning the photoconductive response. Intercalation of ~ 3 atomic % of zerovalent Cu reduces the carrier lifetime in GeSe and GeS. In GeS, it also shortens the photoconductivity rise and improves carrier mobility. 

Garnering attention for high conductivity, nonlinear optical properties, and more, MXenes are water-processable 2D materials that are considered candidates for applications in electromagnetic interference shielding, optoelectronic and photonic devices among others. Herein we investigate the intrinsic and photoexcited conductivity in Nb 2 CT x, a MXene with reported high photothermal conversion efficiency. DFT calculations show that hydroxyl and/or fluorine-terminated or is metallic, in agreement with THz spectroscopy, which reveals the presence of free charge carriers that are highly localized over mesoscopic length scales. Photoexcitation of Nb 2 CT x, known to result in rapid heating of the crystal lattice, is found to produce additional free carriers and a transient enhancement of photoconductivity. Most photoexcited carriers decay over the sub-picosecond time scales while a small fraction remain for much longer, sub-nanoseconds, times.