Evolution of nanopores in hexagonal boron nitride

Chunhui Dai; Derek Popple; Cong Su; Ji-Hoon Park; Kenji Watanabe; Takashi Taniguchi; Jing Kong; Alex Zettl

doi:10.1038/s42004-023-00899-1

Evolution of nanopores in hexagonal boron nitride

Commun Chem. 2023 Jun 5;6(1):108. doi: 10.1038/s42004-023-00899-1.

Authors

Chunhui Dai^{1

2

3}, Derek Popple^{2

3

4}, Cong Su^{1

2

3}, Ji-Hoon Park⁵, Kenji Watanabe⁶, Takashi Taniguchi⁶, Jing Kong⁵, Alex Zettl^{7

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
² Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
³ Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁵ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA.
⁶ International Centre for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan.
⁷ Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. azettl@berkeley.edu.
⁸ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. azettl@berkeley.edu.
⁹ Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. azettl@berkeley.edu.

Abstract

The engineering of atomically-precise nanopores in two-dimensional materials presents exciting opportunities for both fundamental science studies as well as applications in energy, DNA sequencing, and quantum information technologies. The exceptional chemical and thermal stability of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) suggest that exposed h-BN nanopores will retain their atomic structure even when subjected to extended periods of time in gas or liquid environments. Here we employ transmission electron microscopy to examine the time evolution of h-BN nanopores in vacuum and in air and find, even at room temperature, dramatic geometry changes due to atom motion and edge contamination adsorption, for timescales ranging from one hour to one week. The discovery of nanopore evolution contrasts with general expectations and has profound implications for nanopore applications of two-dimensional materials.

Abstract

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