Mechanical strain effects on black phosphorus nanoresonators

Abstract

We perform classical molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the effects of mechanical strain on single-layer black phosphorus nanoresonators at different temperatures. We find that the resonant frequency is highly anisotropic in black phosphorus due to its intrinsic puckered configuration, and that the quality factor in the armchair direction is higher than in the zigzag direction at room temperature. The quality factors are also found to be intrinsically larger than those in graphene and MoS2 nanoresonators. The quality factors can be increased by more than a factor of two by applying tensile strain, with uniaxial strain in the armchair direction being the most effective. However, there is an upper bound for the quality factor increase due to nonlinear effects at large strains, after which the quality factor decreases. The tension induced nonlinear effect is stronger along the zigzag direction, resulting in a smaller maximum strain for quality factor enhancement.