Two-dimensional black phosphorus has been configured as field-effect transistors, showing an intrinsic symmetric ambipolar transport characteristic. Here, we demonstrate the strongly modulated ambipolar characteristics of few-layer black phosphorus in oxygen. Pure oxygen exposure can dramatically decrease the electron mobility of black phosphorus without degrading the hole transport. The transport characteristics can be nearly recovered upon annealing in Argon. This reveals that oxygen molecules are physisorbed on black phosphorus. In contrast, oxygen exposure upon light illumination exhibits a significant attenuation for both electron and hole transport, originating from the photoactivated oxidation of black phosphorus, which is corroborated by in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy characterization. Our findings clarify the predominant role of oxygen in modulating ambipolar characteristics of black phosphorus, thereby providing deeper insight to the design of black phosphorus based complementary electronics.
@article{arxiv.1603.02799,
title = {Strongly Modulated Ambipolar Characteristics of Few-layer Black Phosphorus in Oxygen},
author = {Cheng Han and Zehua Hu and Jialin Zhang and Fang Hu and Du Xiang and Jing Wu and Bo Lei and Li Wang and Wen Ping Hu and Wei Chen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.02799},
year = {2016}
}