Abstract
The development of new, high-quality functional materials has been at the forefront of condensed-matter research. The recent advent of two-dimensional black phosphorus has greatly enriched the materials base of two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs)1,2,3,4,5. Here, we report the observation of the integer quantum Hall effect in a high-quality black phosphorus 2DES. The high quality is achieved by embedding the black phosphorus 2DES in a van der Waals heterostructure close to a graphite back gate6,7; the graphite gate screens the impurity potential in the 2DES and brings the carrier Hall mobility up to 6,000 cm2 Vā1 sā1. The exceptional mobility enabled us to observe the quantum Hall effect and to gain important information on the energetics of the spin-split Landau levels in black phosphorus. Our results set the stage for further study on quantum transport and device application in the ultrahigh mobility regime.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Li, L. et al. Black phosphorus field-effect transistors. Nature Nanotech. 9, 372ā377 (2014).
Liu, H. et al. Phosphorene: an unexplored 2D semiconductor with a high hole mobility. ACS Nano 8, 4033ā4041 (2014).
Xia, F., Wang, H. & Jia, Y. Rediscovering black phosphorus as an anisotropic layered material for optoelectronics and electronics. Nature Commun. 5, 4458 (2014).
Koenig, S. P., Doganov, R. A., Schmidt, H., Neto, A. H. C. & Ćzyilmaz, B. Electric field effect in ultrathin black phosphorus. Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 103106 (2014).
Castellanos-Gomez, A. et al. Isolation and characterization of few-layer black phosphorus. 2D Mater. 1, 025001 (2014).
Ponomarenko, L. A. et al. Tunable metal-insulator transition in double-layer graphene heterostructures. Nature Phys. 7, 958ā961 (2011).
Hunt, B. et al. Massive Dirac fermions and Hofstadter butterfly in a van der Waals heterostructure. Science 340, 1427ā1430 (2013).
Klitzing, K. v., Dorda, G. & Pepper, M. New method for high-accuracy determination of the fine-structure constant based on quantized hall resistance. Phys. Rev. Lett. 45, 494ā497 (1980).
Sarma, S. D. & Pinczuk, A. Perspectives in Quantum Hall Effects (Wiley, 2004).
Tsui, D. C. & Gossard, A. C. Resistance standard using quantization of the Hall resistance of GaAs-AlxGa1āxAs heterostructures. Appl. Phys. Lett. 38, 550ā552 (1981).
Khan, M. A., Kuznia, J. N., Hove, J. M. V., Pan, N. & Carter, J. Observation of a two-dimensional electron gas in low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposited GaN-AlxGa1-xN heterojunctions. Appl. Phys. Lett. 60, 3027ā3029 (1992).
Novoselov, K. S. et al. Two-dimensional gas of massless Dirac fermions in graphene. Nature 438, 197ā200 (2005).
Zhang, Y., Tan, Y.-W., Stormer, H. L. & Kim, P. Experimental observation of the quantum Hall effect and Berry's phase in graphene. Nature 438, 201ā204 (2005).
Tsukazaki, A. et al. Quantum Hall effect in polar oxide heterostructures. Science 315, 1388ā1391 (2007).
Morita, A. Semiconducting black phosphorus. Appl. Phys. A 39, 227ā242 (1986).
Tran, V., Soklaski, R., Liang, Y. & Yang, L. Layer-controlled band gap and anisotropic excitons in few-layer black phosphorus. Phys. Rev. B 89, 235319 (2014).
Fei, R. & Yang, L. Strain-engineering the anisotropic electrical conductance of few-layer black phosphorus. Nano Lett. 14, 2884ā2889 (2014).
Rodin, A. S., Carvalho, A. & Castro Neto, A. H. Strain-induced gap modification in black phosphorus. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 176801 (2014).
Liu, Q., Zhang, X., Abdalla, L. B., Fazzio, A. & Zunger, A. Electric field induced topological phase transition in two-dimensional few-layer black phosphorus. Nano Lett. 15, 1222ā1228 (2015).
Xiang, Z. J. et al. Pressure-induced Lifshitz transition in black phosphorus. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 186403 (2015).
Akahama, Y., Endo, S. & Narita, S. Electrical properties of black phosphorus single crystals. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 52, 2148ā2155 (1983).
Li, L. et al. Quantum oscillations in a two-dimensional electron gas in black phosphorus thin films. Nature Nanotech. 10, 608ā613 (2015).
Tayari, V. et al. Two-dimensional magnetotransport in a black phosphorus naked quantum well. Nature Commun. 6, 7702 (2015).
Chen, X. et al. High-quality sandwiched black phosphorus heterostructure and its quantum oscillations. Nature Commun. 6, 7315 (2015).
Gillgren, N. et al. Gate tunable quantum oscillations in air-stable and high mobility few-layer phosphorene heterostructures. 2D Mater. 2, 011001 (2015).
Cao, Y. et al. Quality heterostructures from two dimensional crystals unstable in air by their assembly in inert atmosphere. Nano Lett. 15, 4914ā4921 (2015).
Wang, L. et al. One-dimensional electrical contact to a two-dimensional material. Science 342, 614ā617 (2013).
Sze, S. M. & Ng, K. K. Physics of Semiconductor Devices (Wiley, 2006).
Datta, S. Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995).
Ando, T. & Uemura, Y. Theory of oscillatory g factor in an MOS inversion layer under strong magnetic fields. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 37, 1044ā1052 (1974).
Nicholas, R. J., Haug, R. J., Klitzing, K. v. & Weimann, G. Exchange enhancement of the spin splitting in a GaAs-GaxAl1-xAs heterojunction. Phys. Rev. B 37, 1294ā1302 (1988).
Zhang, Y. et al. Landau-level splitting in graphene in high magnetic fields. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 136806 (2006).
Falson, J. et al. Even-denominator fractional quantum Hall physics in ZnO. Nature Phys. 11, 347ā351 (2015).
Fang, F. F. & Stiles, P. J. Effects of a tilted magnetic field on a two-dimensional electron gas. Phys. Rev. 174, 823ā828 (1968).
Qiao, J., Kong, X., Hu, Z.-X., Yang, F. & Ji, W. High-mobility transport anisotropy and linear dichroism in few-layer black phosphorus. Nature Commun. 5, 4475 (2014).
Acknowledgements
We thank A. Hamilton, L. Yang for helpful discussions. We also thank S. Hannahs, T. Murphy, E. Sang Choi, D. Graf, J. Billings, B. Pullum, L. Balicas, L. Pi, C. Xi for help with measurements in DC high magnetic fields, J. Wang, Z. Xia for help with measurements in pulsed magnetic fields, and P. Kim, X. Liu, L. Wang for help with the dry-transfer technique. A portion of this work was performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement no. DMR-1157490, the State of Florida, and the US Department of Energy. A portion of this work was performed on the Steady High Magnetic Field Facilities, High Magnetic Field Laboratory, CAS. Measurements in pulsed magnetic field were carried out at Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, China. Part of the sample fabrication was conducted at Fudan Nano-fabrication Lab. L.L., F. Y. and Y.Z. acknowledge support from NSF of China (grant nos. 11425415 and 11421404) and National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; grant no. 2013CB921902). L.L. and Y.Z. also acknowledge support from Samsung Global Research Outreach (GRO) Program. G.J.Y and X.H.C. acknowledge support from the āStrategic Priority Research Programā of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB04040100), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; grant no. 2012CB922002) and NSF of China. Z.Z. and Y.W. are supported by Ministry of Science and Technology of China (grant no. 2015CB921000). W.L. and K.C. acknowledge support from NSF of China (grant no. 11434010). K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the MEXT, Japan. T.T. also acknowledges support by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, āNano Informaticsā (grant nos. 262480621 and 25106006) from JSPS.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
L.L. and F.Y. fabricated the black phosphorus devices, performed transport measurements and analysed the data. Z. Z. helped with the sample fabrication and transport measurements. G.J.Y. and X.H.C. grew the bulk black phosphorus crystals. Z.Z. and L.L. helped with the measurements in a pulsed high magnetic field. W.L., X.Z. and K.C. did theoretical calculations. K.W. and T. T. grew the bulk hBN. Y.Z., X.H.C. and Y.W. co-supervised the project. L.L., F.Y. and Y.Z. wrote the paper with input from all authors.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
Supplementary information (PDF 2659 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, L., Yang, F., Ye, G. et al. Quantum Hall effect in black phosphorus two-dimensional electron system. Nature Nanotech 11, 593ā597 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.42
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.42
