Controlled synthesis of uniform multilayer hexagonal boron nitride films on Fe2B alloy

Zhiyuan Shi; Guangyuan Lu; Peng Yang; Tianru Wu; Weijun Yin; Chao Zhang; Ren Jiang; Xiaoming Xie

doi:10.1039/c9ra00595a

Controlled synthesis of uniform multilayer hexagonal boron nitride films on Fe₂B alloy

RSC Adv. 2019 Apr 1;9(18):10155-10158. doi: 10.1039/c9ra00595a. eCollection 2019 Mar 28.

Authors

Zhiyuan Shi^{1

2

3}, Guangyuan Lu^{1

3}, Peng Yang⁴, Tianru Wu^{1

3}, Weijun Yin¹, Chao Zhang^{1

2

3}, Ren Jiang^{1

5}, Xiaoming Xie^{1

2

3

6}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 200050 China trwu@mail.sim.ac.cn.
² School of Electronic, Electrical and Communication Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences 19 A Yuquan Road Beijing 100049 China.
³ CAS Center for Excellence in Superconducting Electronics (CENSE) Shanghai 200050 China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University 220 Handan Road Shanghai 200433 China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, School of Physics and Material Science, East China Normal University 3663 N. Zhongshan Road Shanghai 200062 China.
⁶ School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University Shanghai 200031 China.

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is highly appreciated for its excellent insulating performance and absence of dangling bonds, which could be employed to maintain the intrinsic properties of 2D materials. However, controllable synthesis of large scale multilayer h-BN is still very challenging. Here, we demonstrate chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of multilayer h-BN by using iron boride (Fe₂B) alloy and nitrogen (N₂) as precursors. Different from the self-limited growth mechanism of monolayer h-BN on catalytic metal surfaces, with sufficient B source in the bulk, Fe₂B alloy promotes the controllable isothermal segregation of multilayer h-BN by reacting with active N atoms on the surface of the substrate. Microscopic and spectroscopic characterizations prove the high uniformity and crystalline quality of h-BN with a highly orientated layered lattice structure. The achievement of large scale multilayer h-BN in this work would facilitate its applications in 2D electronics and optoelectronics in the future.