The preparation of holey phosphorene by electrochemical assistance

Abstract

Black phosphorus (BP), an emerging two-dimensional (2D) layered semiconductor material, has been applied to various fields due to its excellent properties such as remarkable in-plane anisotropy, high carrier mobility, and high on-off ratio. It is well known that the properties of BP depend on its structure and morphology, and the nano-BP is usually superior to bulk BP in terms of application and performance. Up to now, the reported nano-BP with different structure and morphology only includes two-dimensional phosphorene and zero-dimensional BP quantum dots. It is very possible to develop nano-BP with a novel structure to improve the performance and expand its application. In this work, a novel phosphorene with a holey structure was prepared by electrochemical assistance for the first time. The obtained holey phosphorene was characterized by TEM, XPS, Raman, XRD, SEM, AFM and UV–Vis techniques. The relevant results indicate that the thickness of the synthesized holey phosphorene was 1–2 nm (ca. 1–2 layers), and the pore size ranges from a few nanometers to tens of nanometers. Keywords: Black phosphorus, Holey phosphorene, Electrochemical assistance