Recently, Academician Fan Dianyuan, Professor Zhang Wei, and their research group from Shenzhen University published a research article entitled “Liquefaction of Water on the Surface of Anisotropic Two-dimensional Atomic Layered Black Phosphorus” (DOI: org/10.1038/s41467-019-11937-9) in Nature Communications. Associate Professor Guo Zhinan and Professor Zhang Wei are the corresponding authors.
The growth and wetting of water on two-dimensional (2D) materials are important to understand the development of 2D material based electronic, optoelectronic, and nanomechanical devices. Professor Fan Dianyuan, Professor Zhang Wei, and their research group visualize the liquefaction processes of water on the surface of graphene, MoS2 and black phosphorus (BP) via optical microscopy. They show that the shape of the water droplets forming on the surface of BP, which is anisotropic, is elliptical. In contrast, droplets are rounded when they form on the surface of graphene or MoS2, which do not possess orthometric anisotropy. Molecular simulations show that the anisotropic liquefaction process of water on the surface of BP is attributed to the different binding energies of H2O molecules on BP along the armchair and zigzag directions. Their findings not only reveal the anisotropic nature of water liquefaction on the BP surface but also provide a way for fast and nondestructive determination of the crystalline orientation of BP. The study paves a way for future research on anisotropic 2D material-based electronic, optoelectronic, and nanomechanical devices.
The work was supported by the National Natural Science Fund.
Link to the paper:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11937-9
