Towards large-scale growth of blue phosphorene

The synthesis of phosphorene is sparsely reported, with no results of large-scale synthesis [1,2]. Here we present a new pathway, by performing molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, to the possibility of large-scale blue phosphorene (BLP) growth on Nickel (Ni) substrate. We show that Ni (111) orientation exhibits fewer defects than other orientations due to symmetry and lattice mismatch. MD results also show that temperature control of the substrate is a significant parameter for a high yield and good uniformity of the BLP, with the cooling rate having a primordial role in healing defects. Nickel is an efficient substrate for large-scale synthesis of BLP, paving the way for phosphorene synthesis control and Terahertz applications [3,4].