Anisotropic charged impurity-limited carrier mobility in monolayer phosphorene

The room temperature carrier mobility in atomically thin 2D materials is usually far below the intrinsic limit imposed by phonon scattering as a result of scattering by remote charged impurities in its environment. We simulate the charged impurity-limited carrier mobility mu in bare and encapsulated monolayer phosphorene. We find a significant temperature dependence in the carrier mobilities (mu proportional to T-gamma) that results from the temperature variability of the charge screening and varies with the crystal orientation. The anisotropy in the effective mass leads to an anisotropic carrier mobility, with the mobility in the armchair direction about one order of magnitude larger than in the zigzag direction. In particular, this mobility anisotropy is enhanced at low temperatures and high carrier densities. Under encapsulation with a high-kappa overlayer, the mobility increases by up to an order of magnitude although its temperature dependence and its anisotropy are reduced. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.