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Large-scale growth of few-layer two-dimensional black phosphorus

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1203–1209 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Two-dimensional materials provide opportunities for developing semiconductor applications at atomistic thickness to break the limits of silicon technology. Black phosphorus (BP), as a layered semiconductor with controllable bandgap and high carrier mobility, is one of the most promising candidates for transistor devices at atomistic thickness1,2,3,4. However, the lack of large-scale growth greatly hinders its development in devices. Here, we report the growth of ultrathin BP on the centimetre scale through pulsed laser deposition. The unique plasma-activated region induced by laser ablation provides highly desirable conditions for BP cluster formation and transportation5,6, facilitating growth. Furthermore, we fabricated large-scale field-effect transistor arrays on BP films, yielding appealing hole mobility of up to 213 and 617 cm2 V−1 s−1 at 295 and 250 K, respectively. Our results pave the way for further developing BP-based wafer-scale devices with potential applications in the information industry.

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Fig. 1: Growth of centimetre-scale few-layer BP films.
Fig. 2: Large-area investigations of few-layer BP films.
Fig. 3: Atomistic features of few-layer BP films.
Fig. 4: Electrical performance of centimetre-scale few-layer BP.

Data availability

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 51972279 and 11534010) and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (GRF nos. PolyU 153025/19P and PolyU 153039/17P) and a PolyU Grant (1-ZVGH).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Zehan Wu, Yongxin Lyu, Yi Zhang, Ran Ding, Beining Zheng, Zhibin Yang, Shu Ping Lau & Jianhua Hao

  2. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

    Zehan Wu, Yongxin Lyu & Jianhua Hao

  3. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Physics, and CAS Key Laboratory of Strongly-coupled Quantum Matter Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China

    Xian Hui Chen

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Contributions

J.H., Z.W. and X.H.C. conceived the original idea and designed the experiments. J.H., S.P.L. and X.H.C. supervised the project. Z.W. and B.Z. developed the synthesis techniques and fabricated the samples. Y.L. performed the MD simulations. Z.W. and Y.Z. conducted the TEM and EDX experiments. Z.W. and R.D. performed other physical characterizations, including the AFM, EBS, XPS, XRD, EBSD, Raman, PL and SEM studies, and analysed the results. Z.W. and Z.Y. fabricated the FET devices and investigated their electrical properties. Z.W., Y.L., X.H.C. and J.H. co-wrote the paper and all the authors commented on it.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xian Hui Chen or Jianhua Hao.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Materials thanks Richard Martel, Amin Salehi-Khojin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–12, Table 1, notes for the output analysis of the MD simulations, legends for Videos 1 and 2, and refs. 1–23.

Supplementary Video 1

Evolution processes of phosphorus clusters affected by laser of varying energy.

Supplementary Video 2

Ablation phenomena on the target surface under optimal and excessive laser fluence.

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Wu, Z., Lyu, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Large-scale growth of few-layer two-dimensional black phosphorus. Nat. Mater. 20, 1203–1209 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01001-7

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