Pressure quenching: a new route for the synthesis of black phosphorus

Abstract

Methods to synthesize black phosphorus (BP) have been studied over the last few decades with several challenges remaining to be solved. In this paper, BP flakes were synthesized using a novel method, which we named as “Pressure Quenching” approach. Briefly, BP was obtained from red phosphorus (RP) through a controllable phase transition under conditions below 0.4 GPa and 580 °C. The mechanism was investigated in detail via a decompression process at fixed temperature with the phase transition exhibiting an energy barrier dependence. Meanwhile, an extra tunable energy was generated by pressure quenching as a supplement for the phase transition. Therefore, the transition from RP to BP could be easily controlled by tuning the applied pressure.