Fabrication of suspended few-layer black phosphorus nanopores and nanoribbons via electron beam nanosculpting

We present nanopores, nanoribbons, and nanogaps in suspended few-layer black phosphorus (BP) flakes that have been realized using in situ transmission electron microscope nanosculpting. Few-layer BP flakes were first produced through a liquid exfoliation procedure and suspended on holey SiN$_{x}$ membranes. We investigate the structural characteristics of few-layer BP and further show the time-dependent properties of various nanostructures under exposure to an electron beam. It is shown that high-resolution structural modification of nanopores and nanoribbons can be achieved with nanometer-scale precision on timescales of a few minutes. We also used density functional theory to provide a model for the observed anisotropy in edge formation by computing energy barriers for various edge geometries.