Compressive straining of bilayer phosphorene leads to extraordinary electron mobility at a new conduction band edge

2D Materials for Skin-Mountable Electronic Devices

Skin-mountable devices that can directly measure various biosignals and external stimuli and communicate the information to the users have been actively studied owing to increasing demand for wearable electronics and newer healthcare systems. Research on skin-mountable devices is mainly focused on those materials and mechanical design aspects that satisfy the device fabrication requirements on unusual substrates like skin and also for achieving good sensing capabilities and stable device operation in high-strain conditions. 2D materials that are atomically thin and possess unique electrical and optical properties offer several important features that can address the challenging needs in wearable, skin-mountable electronic devices. Herein, recent research progress on skin-mountable devices based on 2D materials that exhibit a variety of device functions including information input and output and in vitro and in vivo healthcare and diagnosis is reviewed. The challenges, potential solutions, and perspectives on trends for future work are also discussed.

Strain engineering of the electronic and transport properties of monolayer tellurenyne

Two-dimensional (2D) materials exhibiting quality electronic properties such as suitable band gap, giant Rashba effect and high carrier mobility are essential for promising applications in electronics and spintronics. Strain engineering has been recognized as an effective strategy to engineer the atomic and electronic properties of 2D materials. Herein, based on density functional theory, we demonstrate that the electronic properties of tellurenyne can be tuned well by using uniaxial strain. We find that tellurenyne retains the unique noncovalent bond structure and exhibits good stability under the uniaxial strain. Meanwhile, the band gap of tellurenyne can be tuned to a large scale (0.33-1.18 eV and 0.73-1.27 eV under the uniaxial strain along and perpendicular to the chain direction, respectively). Under 10% tension strain along the chain direction, the Rashba constant reaches 2.96 eV Å, belonging to giant Rashba systems. More importantly, the hole mobility of tellurenyne along the chain direction reaches 1.1 × 105 cm2 V-1 s-1 under 10% tension strain along the chain direction, which is one order of magnitude larger than that of phosphorene. Therefore, these remarkable electronic properties of tellurenyne engineered by using strain indicate its potential applications in electronics and spintronics.

Monolayer tellurenyne assembled with helical telluryne: structure and transport properties

Two-dimensional (2D) crystals are candidate materials for electronics and spintronics, but their deficient carrier mobility, inappreciable spin-orbit coupling effect, and environmental instability have such limited applications. Herein, using density functional theory methods, we propose a novel 2D monolayer material, named tellurenyne, built with an atomic tellurium chain (named telluryne) via a noncovalent bond. The comparable electrostatic and van der Waals contributions to interchain binding enable tellurenyne to exhibit remarkable stabilities and transport properties. The carrier mobility of tellurenyne is even higher than phosphorene, with the largest anisotropy among all known systems. Importantly, by changing the phase orders of one-dimensional telluryne, one can switch the preferred carrier type and rotate the dominant direction of carrier transport by 90°. Additionally, tellurenyne is found to exhibit Rashba spin splitting with the coupling parameter of 2.13 eV Å, belonging to the giant Rashba systems. Therefore, this novel 2D material, tellurenyne, is promising for applications in electronics and spintronics.

Closed-edged bilayer phosphorene nanoribbons producing from collapsing armchair phosphorene nanotubes

A new phosphorous allotrope, closed-edged bilayer phosphorene nanoribbon, is proposed via radially deforming armchair phosphorene nanotubes. Using molecular dynamics simulations, the transformation pathway from round PNTs falls into two types of collapsed structures: arc-like and sigmoidal bilayer nanoribbons, dependent on the number of phosphorene unit cells. The fabricated nanoribbions are energetically more stable than their parent nanotubes. It is also found via ab initio calculations that the band structure along tube axis substantially changes with the structural transformation. The direct-to-indirect transition of band gap is highlighted when collapsing into the arc-like nanoribbons but not the sigmoidal ones. Furthermore, the band gaps of these two types of nanoribbons show significant size-dependence of the nanoribbon width, indicative of wider tunability of their electrical properties.

Diverse carrier mobility of monolayer BNC x : a combined density functional theory and Boltzmann transport theory study

BNC _x monolayer as a kind of two-dimensional material has numerous chemical atomic ratios and arrangements with different electronic structures. Via calculations on the basis of density functional theory and Boltzmann transport theory under deformation potential approximation, the band structures and carrier mobilities of BNC _x (x  =  1,2,3,4) nanosheets are systematically investigated. The calculated results show that BNC₂-1 is a material with very small band gap (0.02 eV) among all the structures while other BNC _x monolayers are semiconductors with band gap ranging from 0.51 eV to 1.32 eV. The carrier mobility of BNC _x varies considerably from tens to millions of cm² V^-1 s^-1. For BNC₂-1, the hole mobility and electron mobility along both x and y directions can reach 10⁵ orders of magnitude, which is similar to the carrier mobility of graphene. Besides, all studied BNC _x monolayers obviously have anisotropic hole mobility and electron mobility. In particular, for semiconductor BNC₄, its hole mobility along the y direction and electron mobility along the x direction unexpectedly reach 10⁶ orders of magnitude, even higher than that of graphene. Our findings suggest that BNC _x layered materials with the proper ratio and arrangement of carbon atoms will possess desirable charge transport properties, exhibiting potential applications in nanoelectronic devices.

Flexible Device Applications of 2D Semiconductors

Graphene-like single- or few-layer semiconductors, such as dichalcogenides and buckled nanocrystals, possess direct and tunable bandgaps, and excellent electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties. This unique set of desirable properties of 2D semiconductors has triggered great interest in developing ultra-thin 2D flexible electronic devices, which ranges from realizing better material quality and simplified fabrication processes, to improving device performance and expanding the application horizon. The most explored 2D flexible devices based on transition metal dichalcogenides and black phosphorous include field-effect transistors, optoelectronics, electronic sensors and supercapacitors. By taking advantage of a large portfolio of materials and properties of 2D crystals, a new generation of low-cost, high-performance, transparent, flexible and wearable devices looks attractive and promising in advancing flexible electronic technologies.

Vastly enhancing the chemical stability of phosphorene by employing an electric field

Currently, a major hurdle preventing phosphorene from various electronic applications is its rapid oxidation under ambient conditions. Thus how to enhance its chemical stability by suppressing oxidation becomes an urgent task. Here, we reveal a highly effective procedure to suppress the oxidation of phosphorene by employing a suitable van der Waals (vdW) substrate and a vertical electric field. Our first-principles study shows that the phosphorene-MoSe₂ vdW heterostructure is able to reverse the stability of physisorption and chemisorption of molecular O₂ on phosphorene. With further application of a vertical electric field of -0.6 V Å^-1, the energy barrier for oxidation is able to further increase to 0.91 eV, leading to a 10⁵ times enhancement in its lifetime compared with that without using the procedure at room temperature. Our work presents a viable strategy to vastly enhance the chemical stability of phosphorene in air.

Nanotube-terminated zigzag edges of phosphorene formed by self-rolling reconstruction

The edge atomic configuration often plays an important role in dictating the properties of finite-sized two-dimensional (2D) materials. By performing ab initio calculations, we identify a highly stable zigzag edge of phosphorene, which is the most stable one among all the considered edges. Surprisingly, this highly stable edge exhibits a novel nanotube-like structure, which is topologically distinctively different from any previously reported edge reconstruction. We further show that this new edge type can form easily, with an energy barrier of only 0.234 eV. It may be the dominant edge type at room temperature under vacuum conditions or even under low hydrogen gas pressure. The calculated band structure reveals that the reconstructed edge possesses a bandgap of 1.23 eV. It is expected that this newly found edge structure may stimulate more studies in uncovering other novel edge types and further exploring their practical applications.

Mechanical properties of phosphorene nanotubes: a density functional tight-binding study

Using the density functional tight-binding method, we studied the elastic properties, deformation and failure of armchair (AC) and zigzag (ZZ) phosphorene nanotubes (PNTs) under uniaxial tensile strain. We found that the deformation and failure of PNTs are very much anisotropic. For ZZ PNTs, three deformation phases are recognized: the primary linear elastic phase-which is associated with interactions between neighboring puckers, succeeded by the bond rotation phase-where the puckered configuration of phosphorene is smoothed via bond rotation, and lastly the bond elongation phase-where the P-P bonds are directly stretched up to the maximally allowed limit and failure is initiated by the rupture of the most stretched bonds. For AC PNTs, the applied strain stretches the bonds up to the maximally allowed limit, causing their ultimate failure. For both AC and ZZ PNTs, their failure strain and failure stress are sensitive- while the Young's modulus, flexural rigidity, radial Poisson's ratio and thickness Poisson's ratio are relatively insensitive-to the tube diameter. More specifically, for AC PNTs, the failure strain decreases from 0.40 to 0.25 and the failure stress increases from 13 GPa to 21 GPa when the tube diameter increases from 13.3 Å to 32.8 Å; while for ZZ PNTs, the failure strain decreases from 0.66 to 0.55 and the failure stress increases from 4 GPa to 9 GPa when the tube diameter increases from 13.2 Å to 31.1 Å. The Young's modulus, flexural rigidity, radial and thickness Poisson ratios are 114.2 GPa, 0.019 eV · nm(2), 0.47 and 0.11 for AC PNTs, and 49.2 GPa, 0.071 eV · nm(2), 0.07 and 0.21 for ZZ PNTs, respectively. The present findings provide valuable references for the design and application of PNTs as device elements.

Ab initio studies of phoshorene island single electron transistor

Phosphorene is a newly unveiled two-dimensional crystal with immense potential for nanoelectronic and optoelectronic applications. Its unique electronic structure and two dimensionality also present opportunities for single electron devices. Here we report the behaviour of a single electron transistor (SET) made of a phosphorene island, explored for the first time using ab initio calculations. We find that the band gap and the charging energy decrease monotonically with increasing layer numbers due to weak quantum confinement. When compared to two other novel 2D crystals such as graphene and MoS2, our investigation reveals larger adsorption energies of gas molecules on phosphorene, which indicates better a sensing ability. The calculated charge stability diagrams show distinct changes in the presence of an individual molecule which can be applied to detect the presence of different molecules with sensitivity at a single molecular level. The higher charging energies of the molecules within the SET display operational viability at room temperature, which is promising for possible ultra sensitive detection applications.

Single-Layered Hittorf's Phosphorus: A Wide-Bandgap High Mobility 2D Material

We propose here a two-dimensional material based on a single layer of violet or Hittorf's phosphorus. Using first-principles density functional theory, we find it to be energetically very stable, comparable to other previously proposed single-layered phosphorus structures. It requires only a small energetic cost of approximately 0.04 eV/atom to be created from its bulk structure, Hittorf's phosphorus, or a binding energy of 0.3-0.4 J/m(2) per layer, suggesting the possibility of exfoliation in experiments. We find single-layered Hittorf's phosphorus to be a wide band gap semiconductor with a direct band gap of approximately 2.5 eV, and our calculations show it is expected to have a high and highly anisotropic hole mobility with an upper bound lying between 3000-7000 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). These combined properties make single-layered Hittorf's phosphorus a very good candidate for future applications in a wide variety of technologies, in particular for high frequency electronics, and optoelectronic devices operating in the low wavelength blue color range.

Tunable electronic and magnetic properties of two-dimensional materials and their one-dimensional derivatives

Low‐dimensional materials exhibit many exceptional properties and functionalities which can be efficiently tuned by externally applied force or fields. Here we review the current status of research on tuning the electronic and magnetic properties of low‐dimensional carbon, boron nitride, metal‐dichalcogenides, phosphorene nanomaterials by applied engineering strain, external electric field and interaction with substrates, etc, with particular focus on the progress of computational methods and studies. We highlight the similarities and differences of the property modulation among one‐ and two‐dimensional nanomaterials. Recent breakthroughs in experimental demonstration of the tunable functionalities in typical nanostructures are also presented. Finally, prospective and challenges for applying the tunable properties into functional devices are discussed. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2016, 6:324–350. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1251

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Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

Strain enhancement of acoustic phonon limited mobility in monolayer TiS3

Strain engineering is an effective way to tune the intrinsic properties of a material.

Charge-transport anisotropy in black phosphorus: critical dependence on the number of layers

Tri-layer black phosphorus exhibits unique carrier-transport features. Two descriptors have been proposed to analyze the scattering process of electrons and holes and their recombination as well as relaxation dynamics in black phosphorus. This approach is general enough to be applied for the assessment of transport-anisotropy in any 2D (or quasi-2D) materials as well as the critical dependence on the number of layers.

Surface Charge Transfer Doping of Monolayer Phosphorene via Molecular Adsorption

Monolayer phosphorene has attracted much attention owing to its extraordinary electronic, optical, and structural properties. Rationally tuning the electrical transport characteristics of monolayer phosphorene is essential to its applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. Herein, we study the electronic transport behaviors of monolayer phosphorene with surface charge transfer doping of electrophilic molecules, including 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F4TCNQ), NO2, and MoO3, using density functional theory combined with the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. F4TCNQ shows optimal performance in enhancing the p-type conductance of monolayer phosphorene. Static electronic properties indicate that the enhancement is originated from the charge transfer between adsorbed molecule and phosphorene layer. Dynamic transport behaviors demonstrate that additional channels for hole transport in host monolayer phosphorene were generated upon the adsorption of molecule. Our work unveils the great potential of surface charge transfer doping in tuning the electronic properties of monolayer phosphorene and is of significance to its application in high-performance devices.

Anisotropic thermal transport in phosphorene: effects of crystal orientation

As an intrinsic thermally anisotropic material, the thermal properties of phosphorene must vary with respect to the crystal chirality. Nevertheless, previous studies of heat transfer in phosphorene have been limited to the 0.0° (zigzag, ZZ) and 90.0° (armchair, AC) chiralities. In this study, we investigate the orientation-dependent thermal transport in phosphorene sheets with a complete set of crystal chirality ranging from 0.0° to 90.0° using the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) associated with the first-principles calculations. It was found that in the phosphorene sheets, the intrinsic thermal conductivity is a smooth monotonic decreasing function of the crystal chirality, which exhibits sinusoidal behavior bounded by the two terminated values 48.9 (0.0°) and 27.8 (90.0°) W m(-1) K(-1). The optical modes have unusually large contributions to heat transfer, which account for almost 30% of the total thermal conductivity of phosphorene sheets. This is because the optical phonons have comparable group velocities and relaxation times to the acoustic phonons.