Potential Applications of Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Abstract

Large-scale growth of high-quality hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has been a challenge in two-dimensional (2D)-materialbased electronics. In this presentation, I demonstrate wafer-scale and wrinkle-free epitaxial growth of multi-layer h-BN on a sapphire substrate by using hightemperature and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition.[1] Microscopic and spectroscopic investigations and theoretical calculations reveal that synthesized h-BN has a single rotational orientation with Bernal stacking order. A facile method for transferring h-BN onto other target substrates were developed, which provides the opportunity for using h-BN as a substrate in practical electronic circuits. A graphene field effect transistor fabricated on our h-BN sheets shows highly improved carrier mobility, because the ultra-flatness of the hBN surface can reduce the substrateinduced degradation of the carrier mobility of 2D materials. Afterwards, I show some potential applications of h-BN for a shell layer capping Au nanoparticles in surfaceenhance Raman scattering [2], an encapsulation (or passivation) layer to protect unstable transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) [3], and a proton exchange membrane to replace the Nafion film in a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell.