Epitaxial nucleation and lateral growth of high-crystalline black phosphorus films on silicon

Zengli Huang,Kai Zhang,Han Zhang,Zhongming Zeng,Jie Guo,Xiangfan Xu,Yijun Xu,Hongtao Zhang,Litao Sun,Anlian Pan,Yushuang Zhang,Xinyao Shi,Qinglin Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-14902-z

Abstract

Black phosphorus (BP) is a promising two-dimensional layered semiconductor material for next-generation electronics and optoelectronics, with a thickness-dependent tunable direct bandgap and high carrier mobility. Though great research advantages have been achieved on BP, lateral synthesis of high quality BP films still remains a great challenge. Here, we report the direct growth of large-scale crystalline BP films on insulating silicon substrates by a gas-phase growth strategy with an epitaxial nucleation design and a further lateral growth control. The optimized lateral size of the achieved BP films can reach up to millimeters, with the ability to modulate thickness from a few to hundreds of nanometers. The as-grown BP films exhibit excellent electrical properties, with a field-effect and Hall mobility of over 1200 cm2V−1s−1 and 1400 cm2V−1s−1 at room temperature, respectively, comparable to those exfoliated from BP bulk crystals. Our work opens the door for broad applications with BP in scalable electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Highlights

Black phosphorus (BP) is a promising two-dimensional layered semiconductor material for next-generation electronics and optoelectronics, with a thickness-dependent tunable direct bandgap and high carrier mobility
For the first time, we report the direct growth of large-scale crystalline BP films on insulating silicon substrates by a newly developed gasphase growth strategy with an epitaxial nucleation design and a further lateral growth control
The as-grown BP films exhibit excellent electrical properties with field-effect and Hall mobility of over 1000 cm[2] V−1 s−1 and 1400 cm[2] V−1 s−1 at room temperature, respectively, and current on/off ratio up to 106, comparable to those exfoliated from BP bulk crystals

Summary

Introduction

Black phosphorus (BP) is a promising two-dimensional layered semiconductor material for next-generation electronics and optoelectronics, with a thickness-dependent tunable direct bandgap and high carrier mobility. We report the direct growth of large-scale crystalline BP films on insulating silicon substrates by a gasphase growth strategy with an epitaxial nucleation design and a further lateral growth control. Despite considerable efforts and some successful examples to date[13,14,15], lateral growth of high-crystalline BP films, which hold promising electrical properties and meet the silicon device-scaling requirements, has not been realized. For the first time, we report the direct growth of large-scale crystalline BP films on insulating silicon substrates by a newly developed gasphase growth strategy with an epitaxial nucleation design and a further lateral growth control. Our work demonstrates an important step forwards large-scale preparation of crystallized BP films and open the door for broad applications in scalable optoelectronic devices and compact integrated circuits. A milder growth conditions for highquality BP films becomes necessary

Methods

Results

Conclusion