Abstract: Violet phosphorus was first promoted by Hittorf in 1865 and structurally characterized by Thurn and Krebs in 1969. It was named ‘violet phosphorus’ due to its purple colour. However, no convincing experimental data has been obtained to for violet phosphorus since its promotion in 1865. It was even debated that whether violet phosphorus was even a stable allotrope or a metastable intermediate from red to black phosphorus. We have synthesized violet phosphorus single crystals with sizes of millimeter in lab. The single crystals are dark red transparent instead of purple. The lattice structure of the as-produced violet phosphorus has been determined to be monoclinic with a space group of P2/n (13), CSD-1935087. The interlayer distance of violet phosphorus was demonstrated to be 1.1 nm. The yield of violet phosphorus has been improved to be 80%. The decomposition temperature of bulk violet phosphorus (512 °C) is 52 °C higher than that of black phosphorus (460 °C), indicating that violet phosphorus is the most stable phosphorus allotrope. Violet phosphorene has for the first time been exfoliated by both mechanical and liquid methods under ambient conditions. The work function of violet phosphorene nanoflakes has been shown to decrease with the increase in layers from 5.16 eV to 4.79 eV and tends to be stable on a gold substrate. The work functions measured on a silicon oxide substrate are much higher due to charge accumulation. The band alignments of different layered violet phosphorene materials were also calculated to give a practical route for future applications.

Keywords: Violet phosphorus, violet phosphorene, lattice structure, yield, work function, band alignment.

Biography: Jinying Zhang, received her Master degree from Tsinghua University and PhD from Oxford University.She was working as a postdoctoral fellow from 2009 to 2012 in Nogoya University, Japan. Since 2013, she works as a PI in Xi’an Jiaotong Unviersity. Her research interests are the synthesis and properties of new carbon and phosphorus allotropes. Recently she has successful produced violet phosphorus and phosphorene. The physical and chemical properties of violet phosphrous and phosphorene are still under exploration.