Abstract :
Chemists first synthesized black phosphorus over a hundred years ago. But it was only last year when anybody really took interest in the flaky black stuff. In a series of experiments reported in the first half of 2014, researchers were able to exfoliate black phosphorus into very thin films of only about 10 to 20 atoms thick. Now black phosphorus has become the new darling of two-dimensional materials research and a new hope for a postsilicon world.