Black Phosphorus Nanosheets: Synthesis, Characterization and Applications

Abstract

Black phosphorus (BP) is an emerging two-dimensional (2D) material with a natural bandgap, which has unique anisotropy and extraordinary physical properties. Due to its puckered structure, BP exhibits strong in-plane anisotropy unlike other layered materials. The bandgap tunability of BP enables a wide range of ultrafast electronics and high frequency optoelectronic applications ranging from telecommunications to thermal imaging covering the nearly entire electromagnetic spectrum, whereas no other 2D material has this functionality. Here, recent advances in the synthesis, fabrication, anisotropic physical properties, and BP-based devices including field effect transistors (FETs) and photodetectors, are discussed. Recent passivation approaches to address the degradation of BP, which is one of the main challenges to bring this material into real world applications, are also introduced. Finally, a comment is made on the recent developments in other emerging applications, future outlook and challenges ahead in BP research.

Recent advances in synthesis, properties, and applications of phosphorene

“…Among recently discovered 2D materials, phosphorene is one of the most intriguing due to its exotic properties and numerous foreseeable applications. 2 This review discusses recent advances in phosphorene research with special emphasis on: (i) fabrication and techniques for rapid identification of the number of layers; (ii) anisotropic behavior; (iii) band gap and property tuning; (iv) strain engineering and mechanical properties; (v) devices and applications; and (vi) future directions.…”

“…In a different approach, Gibaja and co-worker recently isolated few-layered antimonene by both liquid phase exfoliation 7 and mechanical cleavage 8 methods. Graphene, the first demonstrated and the most explored 2D material, has a crystalline form of sp 2 carbon atoms packed in a single-atom-thick planar honeycomb network. Its superior properties, including high carrier mobility, ultrahigh surface area, excellent thermal conductivity, and quantum confinement effect have been well documented.…”

Interlayer Bond Formation in Black Phosphorus at High Pressure

“…The current renaissance [1] of black phosphorus (bP), first obtained under high pressure by Bridgman in 1914, [2] is intimately related to the recent synthesis of phosphorene, [3,4] a2 Dc orrugated monoatomic layer of P, where each atom is single-bonded to 3n earest neighbors.T he advent of phosphorene [5][6][7][8][9][10] has indeed dramatically raised the interest of the scientific community about bP,w hose crystalline structure is actually made by the periodic stacking of phosphorene layers, in as imilar way as graphene is related to graphite,a nd the layered phases of this element currently represent an extremely active research topic [11,12] (see the Supporting Information, SI-1).…”

“…Synchrotron X-ray diffraction showed the persistence of two previously unreported peaks related to the A7 structure in the pressure range of the simple-cubic phase.T he Rietveld refinement of the data demonstrates the occurrence of atwo-step mechanism for the A7 to simple-cubic phase transition, indicating the existence of an intermediate pseudo simple-cubic structure.From ac hemical point of view this study represents ad eep insight on the mechanism of interlayer bond formation during the transformation from the layered A7 to the non-layered simple-cubic phase of phosphorus,o pening new perspectives for the design, synthesis and stabilization of phosphorene-based systems.A ss uperconductivity is concerned, anew experimental evidence to explain the anomalous pressure behavior of T c in phosphorus below 30 GPaisprovided.The current renaissance [1] of black phosphorus (bP), first obtained under high pressure by Bridgman in 1914, [2] is intimately related to the recent synthesis of phosphorene, [3,4] a2 Dc orrugated monoatomic layer of P, where each atom is single-bonded to 3n earest neighbors.T he advent of phosphorene [5][6][7][8][9][10] has indeed dramatically raised the interest of the scientific community about bP,w hose crystalline structure is actually made by the periodic stacking of phosphorene layers, in as imilar way as graphene is related to graphite,a nd the layered phases of this element currently represent an extremely active research topic [11,12] (see the Supporting Information, SI-1).At the moment crystalline bP,which is typically obtained from amorphous red phosphorus at high temperature and/or high pressure, [13,14] is the starting material for the synthesis of phosphorene,either by liquid or mechanical exfoliation. The layered semiconducting orthorhombic bP (A17, Cmce, Z = 8) [15,16] is the thermodynamically stable allotrope of the element at ambient conditions (Figure 1).…”

2D Black Phosphorus: from Preparation to Applications for Electrochemical Energy Storage

“…The specific merits of BP from graphene and other 2D materials such as direct band gap (from −0.3 to 2.0 eV) which is highly tunable with number of layers, strong in‐plane anisotropy, and puckered layer. Although a few reviews on 2D BP have been published,30, 38, 56, 57, 77, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 previous sporadic studies on 2D BP in energy storage systems have not been systematically presented. Thus, a comprehensive overview on the state of 2D BP research for EESDs is significant.…”