Black phosphorus: narrow gap, wide applications

TL;DR

Black phosphorus, a novel two-dimensional material with a tunable narrow band gap and high mobility, has garnered intense research interest due to its unique optical and electronic properties suitable for diverse applications.

Contribution

This paper critically reviews the reasons behind the surge in research on black phosphorus, highlighting its unique properties and potential applications in various technological fields.

Findings

Black phosphorus has a wide tunable band gap covering various electromagnetic spectrum regions.

It exhibits high carrier mobility and ambipolar field-effect.

The material shows unusual in-plane anisotropy.

Abstract

The recent isolation of atomically thin black phosphorus by mechanical exfoliation of bulk layered crystals has triggered an unprecedented interest, even higher than that raised by the first works on graphene and other two-dimensional, in the nanoscience and nanotechnology community. In this Perspective we critically analyze the reasons behind the surge of experimental and theoretical works on this novel two-dimensional material. We believe that the fact that black phosphorus band gap value spans over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum that was not covered by any other two-dimensional material isolated to date (with remarkable industrial interest such as thermal imaging, thermoelectrics, fiber optics communication, photovoltaics, etc), its high carrier mobility, its ambipolar field-effect and its rather unusual in-plane anisotropy drew the attention of the scientific community towards this two-dimensional material. Here we also review the current advances, the future directions and the challenges in this young research field.