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Electrical contacts in monolayer blue phosphorene devices

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Abstract

Semiconducting monolayer (ML) blue phosphorene (BlueP) shares similar stability with ML black phosphorene (BP), and it has recently been grown on an Au surface. Potential ML BlueP devices often require direct contact with metal to enable the injection of carriers. Using ab initio electronic structure calculations and quantum transport simulations, for the first time, we perform a systematic study of the interfacial properties of ML BlueP in contact with metals spanning a wide work function range in a field effect transistor (FET) configuration. ML BlueP has undergone metallization owing to strong interaction with five metals. There is a strong Fermi level pinning (FLP) in the ML BlueP FETs due to the metal-induced gap states (MIGS) with a pinning factor of 0.42. ML BlueP forms n-type Schottky contact with Sc, Ag, and Pt electrodes with electron Schottky barrier heights (SBHs) of 0.22, 0.22, and 0.80 eV, respectively, and p-type Schottky contact with Au and Pd electrodes with hole SBHs of 0.61 and 0.79 eV, respectively. The MIGS are eliminated by inserting graphene between ML BlueP and the metal electrode, accompanied by a transition from a strong FLP to a weak FLP. Our study not only provides insight into the ML BlueP–metal interfaces, but also helps in the design of ML BlueP devices.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11274016, 11474012, 11674005, 11274233, and 11664026), the National Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2013CB932604 and 2012CB619304), Ministry of Science and Technology (National Materials Genome Project) of China (Nos. 2016YFA0301300 and 2016YFB0700600), and Foundation of Henan Educational Committee (No. 17A430026).

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  1. Jingzhen Li, Xiaotian Sun and Chengyong Xu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Jingzhen Li, Xiuying Zhang, Yuanyuan Pan, Meng Ye, Zhigang Song, Yangyang Wang, Han Zhang, Jinbo Yang & Jing Lu

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, 100871, China

    Jinbo Yang & Jing Lu

  3. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and Henan Key Laboratory of Function-Oriented Porous Materials, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang, 471934, China

    Xiaotian Sun

  4. School of Science, Nanchang Institute of Technology, Nanchang, 330099, China

    Chengyong Xu

  5. State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications and School of Science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, 100876, China

    Ruge Quhe

  6. Nanophotonics and Optoelectronics Research Center, Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Yangyang Wang

  7. School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, 723001, China

    Ying Guo

  8. School of Advanced Materials, Peking University, Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Feng Pan

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  1. Jingzhen Li
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Correspondence to Feng Pan or Jing Lu.

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Li, J., Sun, X., Xu, C. et al. Electrical contacts in monolayer blue phosphorene devices. Nano Res. 11, 1834–1849 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1801-2

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