Adjustable electronic, optical and photocatalytic properties of black phosphorene by nonmetal doping

Abstract Visible light photocatalysts have drawn wide attention because of their great prospects to solve energy crisis and environmental pollution. Excellent catalytic performance is very important for the development of black phosphorus (BP)-based visible light photocatalysts. Thus, the influences of a series of nonmetal dopants on photocatalytic activity of monolayer BP have been studied. It is found that among all nonmetal dopants, only F dopants can greatly enhance the visible light photocatalytic performances of BP. The reason is that F doping can reduce the recombination rate of photogenerated carriers, improve the absorption efficiency of visible light and increase the number of catalytic active sites.