Abstract
Unlike the unstable black phosphorous, another two-dimensional group-VA material, antimonene, was recently predicted to exhibit good stability and remarkable physical properties. However, the synthesis of high-quality monolayer or few-layer antimonenes, sparsely reported, has greatly hindered the development of this new field. Here, we report the van der Waals epitaxy growth of few-layer antimonene monocrystalline polygons, their atomical microstructure and stability in ambient condition. The high-quality, few-layer antimonene monocrystalline polygons can be synthesized on various substrates, including flexible ones, via van der Waals epitaxy growth. Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy reveal that the obtained antimonene polygons have buckled rhombohedral atomic structure, consistent with the theoretically predicted most stable β-phase allotrope. The very high stability of antimonenes was observed after aging in air for 30 days. First-principle and molecular dynamics simulation results confirmed that compared with phosphorene, antimonene is less likely to be oxidized and possesses higher thermodynamic stability in oxygen atmosphere at room temperature. Moreover, antimonene polygons show high electrical conductivity up to 104 S m−1 and good optical transparency in the visible light range, promising in transparent conductive electrode applications.
Highlights
Unlike the unstable black phosphorous, another two-dimensional group-VA material, antimonene, was recently predicted to exhibit good stability and remarkable physical properties
The obtained anitmonene layers exhibit good stability when exposed in air, which can be verified by optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), Raman spectroscopy, energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)
Van der Waals epitaxy first introduced by Koma et al.[20] can almost avoid these restrictions and it has been proven as a facile technique in synthesizing 2D materials and their vertical heterostructures[21,22,23,24,25]
Summary
Unlike the unstable black phosphorous, another two-dimensional group-VA material, antimonene, was recently predicted to exhibit good stability and remarkable physical properties. In contrast to BP, another group-VA element composed 2D material, antimonene, was recently predicted to be of good stability, as well as extraordinary properties through first-principle calculations[10,11,12,13]. Due to the tremendous difference between various possible allotropes of antimonene, the identification of the exact atomic structure of synthesized anitmonene samples is very important In this case, the experimental synthesis of high-quality and monocrystalline antimonene together with systematic atomic structure characterizations is very urgent for the emerging research hotspots of group-VA elemental 2D materials. We demonstrate that high-quality, few-layer antimonene monocrystalline polygons can be synthesized on various substrates, including flexible ones, via van der Waals epitaxy growth, and highlight their stable b-phase as previously predicted. This work provides experimental evidence of the successful synthesis of few-layer antimonene monocrystalline polygons and it may pave the way for the further experimental investigations of the unique properties of antimonene
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