Black phosphorous is a material that I have written about before here:
It is a unique allotrope of phosphorous that is very similar to graphite in the way it forms layers, conducts electricity, shares similar bonding and even as the name suggests looks quite a bit like graphite. Because of this research is being done almost constantly on the possibility of making a single layer of phosphorous to see if it is as useful as graphene is.
It has now been shown by Raman scattering an interesting feature of black phosphorous: The type of vibration changes near the edge of the material due to the “zigzag” pattern it makes. These individualist phonons are impossible in the middle of the crystal but are produced by the termination arrangement around the edge of the structure. These edges are very important as they play a key role in both thermal and electrical conduction of the phosphorous and will help us find a useful application for it. This research will certainly help the electronics industry and will be especially useful for understanding the properties of ribbons of black phosphorous as these have a low surface area the perimeter ratio and so are dominated by these edge characteristics.