Synthesis of thin-film black phosphorus on a flexible substrate

Abstract

Wereport a scalable approach to synthesize a large-area (up to 4 mm)thin black phosphorus (BP) film on a flexible substrate.Wefirst deposit a red phosphorus thin-film on a flexible polyester substrate, followed by its conversion to BP in a high-pressure multi-anvil cell at room temperature. Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy measurements confirm the formation of a nano-crystalline BP thin-film with a thickness of around 40 nm. Optical characterization indicates a bandgap of around 0.28 eV in the converted BP, similar to the bandgap measured in exfoliated thinfilms. Thin-film BP transistors exhibit a field-effect mobility of around 0.5 cm2 V- s-, which can probably be further enhanced by the optimization of the conversion process at elevated temperatures. Our work opens the avenue for the future demonstration of large-scale, high quality thin-film BP.