Chemical scissors cut phosphorene nanostructures

Phosphorene, a recently fabricated two-dimensional puckered honeycomb structure of phosphorus, showed promising properties for applications in nanoelectronics. In this work, we report a chemical scissors effect on phosphorene, using first-principles method. It was found that chemical species, such as H, OH, F, and Cl, can act as scissors to cut phosphorene. Phosphorus nanochains and nanoribbons can be obtained. The scissors effect results from the strong bonding between the chemical species and phosphorus atoms. Other species such as O, S and Se fail to cut phosphorene nanostructures due to their weak bonding with phosphorus. The electronic structures of the produced P-chains reveal that the hydrogenated chain is an insulator while the pristine chain is a one-dimensional Dirac material, in which the charge carriers are massless fermions travelling at an effective speed of light ∼8×105ms^-1. The obtained zigzag phosphorene nanoribbons show either metallic or semiconducting behaviors, depending on the treatment of the edge phosphorus atoms.