The limited stability of the surface of black phosphorus (BP) under atmospheric conditions is a significant constraint on the exploitation of this layered material and its few layer analogue, phosphorene, as an optoelectronic material. Here we show that supramolecular networks stabilised by hydrogen bonding can be formed on BP, and that these monolayer-thick films can passivate the BP surface and inhibit oxidation under ambient conditions. The supramolecular layers are formed by solution deposition and we use atomic force microscopy to obtain images of the BP surface and hexagonal supramolecular networks of trimesic acid and melamine cyanurate (CA.M) under ambient conditions. The CA.M network is aligned with rows of phosphorus atoms and forms large domains which passivate the BP surface for more than a month, and also provides a stable supramolecular platform for the sequential deposition of 1,2,4,5-tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)benzene to form supramolecular heterostructures.

This paper reviews the use and relation of the word ‘ptène’ to osmium. While Smithson Tennant discovered osmium in platinum ore in 1804, the French chemists Antoine-François Fourcroy and Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin simultaneously identified in a platinum residue a metal they called ‘ptène’. This name was most probably attributed to a mixture of platinoids (excluding platinum), mainly osmium and iridium. Nevertheless, Fourcroy later considered that ‘ptène’ was the name they attributed to osmium.