Repairing and Preventing Photooxidation of Few-Layer Black Phosphorus with β-Carotene Singh, Mandeep Ingle, Aviraj González Garnica, Ana Isabel Mariathomas, Pyria Ramanathan, Rajesh Taylor, Patrick D. Christofferson, Andrew J. Spencer, Michelle J. S. Low, Mei Xian Ahmed, Taimur Walia, Sumeet Trasobares, Susana Manzorro, Ramón Calvino, José J Orte Gutiérrez, Ángel Domínguez Vera, José Manuel Bansal, Vipul This work was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MICINN) (projects FEDER PID2019-111461GB-I00 and PID2020-113006-RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), and the Australian Research Council (DP230101650, DP220100020). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant 823717−ESTEEM3. This research was also supported by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), with access to computational resources provided by the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Facility and the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, through the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (project y41 and kl59). Electron microscopy studies were performed at the DME-UCA node of the Spanish Unique Infrastructure (ICTS) on Electron Microscopy of Materials ELECMI. The support from Ian Potter foundation towards establishing the Sir Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility at RMIT University is acknowledged where the majority of this work was performed. This work was performed in part at the Micro Nano Research Facility in the Victorian Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). A. Ingle, P. Mariathomas and P.D. Taylor acknowledge RMIT University for their RMIT Research Stipend Scholarships. The authors also thank the “Unidad de Excelencia Química aplicada a Biomedicina y Medioambiente” (UGR) for funding and support. Few-layer black phosphorus (FLBP), a technologically important 2D material, faces a major hurdle to consumer applications: spontaneous degradation under ambient conditions. Blocking the direct exposure of FLBP to the environment has remained the key strategy to enhance its stability, but this can also limit its utility. In this paper, a more ambitious approach to handling FLBP is reported where not only is FLBP oxidation blocked, but it is also repaired postoxidation. Our approach, inspired by nature, employs the antioxidant molecule β-carotene that protects plants against photooxidative damages to act as a protecting and repairing agent for FLBP. The mechanistic role of β-carotene is established by a suite of spectro-microscopy techniques, in combination with computational studies and biochemical assays. Transconductance studies on FLBP-based field effect transistor (FET) devices further affirm the protective and reparative effects of β-carotene. The outcomes indicate the potential for deploying a plethora of natural antioxidant molecules to enhance the stability of other environmentally sensitive inorganic nanomaterials and expedite their translation for technological and consumer applications. 2025-05-07T10:51:11Z 2025-05-07T10:51:11Z 2023-04-24 journal article Published version: Singh, Mandeep et al. Repairing and Preventing Photooxidation of Few-Layer Black Phosphorus with β-Carotene. ACS Nano 2023, 17, 9, 8083–8097. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c10232 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/103983 10.1021/acsnano.2c10232 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/823717−ESTEEM3 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional American Chemical Society