Electron-beam assisted growth of hexagonal boron-nitride layer

• A good quality hexagonal boron nitride was grown with borazine precursor gas.
• Cu(111) is a model surface to grow epitaxial hexagonal boron nitride layer.
• We lowered the growth temperature of hexagonal boron nitride film by 100 K.
• The lowering was achieved by introducing ionized or excited precursor gas.
• The defects above and below a growth temperature window are revealed in this study.

It has been known that a good quality h-BN layer can only be grown within a narrow temperature window of 1020–1100 K on a copper substrate. We found that the growth temperature window on Cu(111) surface could be lowered up to 100 K by ionizing and/or exciting borazine precursor gas with an electron-beam. The structures of a hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) layers grown at various substrate temperatures on a Cu(111) were examined using scanning tunneling microscopy. We found that the grown h-BN film exhibits highly inert behavior with wide bandgap semiconductor characteristics.

The quality of h-BN layer grown on Cu(111) surface at 950 K with or without electron-beam.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide