Published in Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 031605 (2018).
Substitutional mechanism for growth of hexagonal boron nitride on epitaxial graphene
Patrick C. Mende, Jun Li, Randall M. Feenstra
Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Abstract
Monolayer-thick hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is grown on graphene on SiC(0001), by exposure of the graphene to borazine, (BH)3(NH)3, at 1100 °C. The h-BN films form ~2 µm size grains with a preferred orientation of 30° relative to the surface graphene. Low-energy electron microscopy is employed to provide definitive signatures of the number and composition of two-dimensional (2D) planes across the surface. These grains are found to form by substitution for the surface graphene, with the C atoms produced by this substitution then being incorporated below the h-BN (at the interface between the existing graphene and the SiC) to form a new graphene plane.
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