Charge distribution of a potassium-doped combined system of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride

By using first-principles density functional theory, we investigate the charge distribution of a potassium-doped layered combined system of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride. Two configurations of potassium-doped hexagonal boron nitride layers on graphenes and the reverse geometry of graphenes on hexagonal boron nitride layers are considered. We find that the charge distribution exhibits different features in these two situations. In the former case, the outmost hexagonal boron nitride layer cannot screen the external charges offered by potassium atom completely and most of the transferred charges reside on the two bounding layers. In contrary, the outmost graphene layer near the potassium atom can accept almost all of the transferred charges and only a few of them stay at interior layers in the latter case. A more amazing result is that the characteristics of charge transfer are independent of the number of hexagonal boron nitride layers and graphenes.

► Most of the transferred charges reside on the two bounding layers for K-doped h-BN layers on graphenes.
► The outmost graphene near K accepts almost all of the transferred charges for K-doped graphenes on h-BN layers.
► The characteristics will not change with increasing h-BN layers and graphenes.