Properties of New Two-Dimensional Nanomaterial Black Phosphorus

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted broad interest because of their low-dimensional effect, and black phosphorus has become a member of them due to the successful preparation. Phosphorus has several allotropes, white phosphorus, red phosphorus and black phosphorus. Black phosphorus is most thermodynamic stable in them. Black phosphorus was obtained by a phase transition from white or red phosphorus at high pressure and high temperature. It is a natural p-type semiconductor in which each layer is vertically stacked by the van der Waals force. The thickness of black phosphorus can be scaled down to the atomic layer scale known as phosphorene by mechanical exfoliation or liquid exfoliation. Compared with black phosphorus, phosphorene’s physical properties have significant changes. The band gap in bulk black phosphorus is 0.3 eV and can be expanded to 1.0 to 1.5 eV depending on the layer numbers. Nevertheless, the poor chemical and structural stability of black phosphorus and phosphorene raises important concerns. In the past century, the synthesis, physical properties, and device applications have been extensively investigated in various studies. In this review article, a lot of references of black phosphorus are cited to introduce systematically the research progresses of structure and preparation, the study of material properties and device performance, the chemistry of the degradation process and the anti-degradation treatments. At last, the development trend of phosphorene is mentioned.