Article: published in Advanced Materials by, Sergio Díaz-Tendero, Fernando Martín, Julio Gómez-Herrero and Félix Zamora, IFIMAC researchers, together with Pablo Ares, Fernando Aguilar-Galindo, David Rodríguez-San-Miguel, Diego A. Aldave and Manuel Alcamí.
We report isolation of antimonene, a new allotrope of antimony that consists on a single layer of atoms. Graphene is well-known by its tremendous potential applications; however the lack of electronic gap limits its use in the electronics technology. Few-layer black phosphorus, a new promising 2D material, can overcome this drawback but shows a marked hygroscopicity (it tends to uptake moisture from air) that degrades its performance even in relatively low humidity atmospheres. In this work, antimonene flakes, obtained by the scotch tape method, are highly stable in ambient conditions and even immersed in water. The 1.2 eV gap calculated in this study suggests potential applications in optoelectronics. [Full article]
