Black or Red Phosphorus yield the same Blue

After the discovery of graphene, many other 2D materials have been predicted theoretically and successfully prepared. In this context, single sheets of black phosphorus - phosphorene, are emerging as a viable contender in the field of (2D) semiconductors. Phosphorene offers a high carrier mobility and an anisotropic structure that gives rise to a modulation of the physical and chemical properties. This opens the way to many novel fascinating applications related to field-effect transistors and optoelectronic devices. In the past studies, a single layer of blue phosphorene intermixed with Au atoms was grown using purified black phosphorous as a precursor. Starting from the observation that phosphorus vapor mainly consists of P clusters, in this work we aimed at obtaining blue phosphorus using the much less expensive purified red phosphorous as evaporant. By means of microscopy, spectroscopy and diffraction experiments, we show that black or red phosphorus deposition on Au(111) substrate yields the same blue phosphorus film.