One-dimensional phosphorus chain and two-dimensional blue phosphorene grown on Au(111) by molecular-beam epitaxy

Abstract

Single layer (SL) phosphorus (phosphorene) has drawn considerable research attention recently as a two-dimensional (2D) material for application promises. It is a semiconductor showing superior transport and optical properties. Few-layer or SL black phosphorus has been successfully isolated by exfoliation from bulk crystals and extensively studied thereof for its electronic and optical properties. Blue phosphorus (blueP), an allotrope of black phosphorus where atoms are arranged in a more flat atomic configuration, has been recently suggested by theory to exist in the SL form on some substrates. In this work, we report the formation of a blueP-like epilayer on Au(111) by molecular-beam epitaxy. In particular, we uncover by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) one-dimensional (1D) atomic chains at low coverage, which develop into more compact islands or patches of $(\sqrt{3}\times \sqrt{3})R30^{\circ }$ structure with increasing coverage before blueP-like islands nucleate and grow. We also note an interesting growth characteristic where the $(\sqrt{3}\times \sqrt{3})R30^{\circ }$ surface at intermediate coverage tends to phase-separate into locally low-coverage 1D chain and high-coverage blueP-like structures, respectively. This experiment thus not only lends a support of the recently proposed half-layer by half-layer (HLBHL) growth mechanism but also reveals the kinetic details of blueP growth processes.

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• Band renormalization of blue phosphorus on Au(111)
• Monolayer, Bilayer and Heterostructures of Green Phosphorene for Water Splitting and Photovoltaics
• Kinetics-Limited Two-Step Growth of van der Waals Puckered Honeycomb Sb Monolayer
• Effects of temperature and strain rate on mechanical behaviors of Stone-Wales defective monolayer black phosphorene
• Electronic, magnetic and optical properties of penta-BN${}_2$ nanoribbons: a first principles study
• Phonon dispersions and electronic structures of two-dimensional IV-V compounds
• Direct observation of structural phase transformations during continuous phosphorus deposition on Cu(111)
• The impact of stress on the electronic structure of phosphorus allotropes stacked on hexagonal boron nitride
• Structures of group-15 elemental solids from an effective boundary theory
• Electromechanical Switching and Momentum-Selective Transport in Geometry-Defined Blue Phosphorus Homojunctions
• Phonon and electronic properties of semiconducting silicon nitride bilayers