PhD student of Faculty of Information Technology published a high-level
academic paper in Nature Communications

Recently, Jinlai Zhao, a PhD student of the Faculty of Information Technology, Macau University of Science and Technology, published a paper entitled “Liquefaction of Water on the Surface of Anisotropic Two-dimensional Atomic Layered Black Phosphorus” (DOI: org/10.1038/s41467-019-11937-9) on the top international academic journal Nature Communications under the supervision of Prof. Han Zhang and Prof. Jianqing Li. The latest impact factor of the journal is 11.88.

The growth and motion of atoms, molecules and clusters on a crystal surface is always an important research topic in the research field of surfaces and interfaces. After 2D materials gained attention to us by the discovery of graphene, studies on the behaviors of water wetting and diffusion on or in atomic structured layers became possible. Herein, liquefaction processes of water on the surface of graphene, MoS₂ and black phosphorus have been visualized via microscopy for the first time. The results showed that the shape of the water droplets forming on the surface of black phosphorus (BP), which is a typical atomic layer with anisotropic properties, is elliptical. In contrast, droplets are rounded when they are formed on the surface of graphene or MoS₂, which do not possess orthometric anisotropy. Molecular simulation results show that such an 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 direction and zigzag direction. The results not only reveal the anisotropic nature of water liquefaction on the BP surface but also provide a new way for fast and non-destructive determination of the crystalline orientation of BP, which is important for future research on anisotropic BP-based electronic, optoelectronic, and nanomechanical devices.

The study was supported by the grants of the Science and Technology Development Fund, Macao SAR (Nos. 007/2017/A1 and 132/2017/A3). Article download link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11937-9.

Fig. 1 The schematic diagram of water droplet on the surface of BP. a. Side view and b. top view. The X direction is in the zigzag structure and the Y direction is in the armchair structure.

Fig. 2 Optical microscope images of BP/graphene/MoS₂ without and with water droplets. a, e, i Few-layer BP/graphite/MoS₂ without water droplets, b, f, j few-layer BP/graphite/MoS₂ with water droplets, c, g, k thick BP/graphite/MoS₂ without water droplets, and d, h, l thick BP/graphite/MoS₂ with water droplets.