Functionalities from corrugated hexagonal boron nitride monolayers

DIPC Seminars

Speaker

Juerg Osterwalder (Univ. Zurich)

When

2014/04/16
14:00

Place

Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4, Donostia

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Single layers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) or graphene exhibit strong corrugations with periodicities in the few nanometer range when grown on transition metal surfaces with a large lattice mismatch, like Rh(111). The geometrical corrugation is accompanied by a corrugation of the electrostatic potential, which provides these surfaces with certain functionalities, e.g. for the trapping of molecules. The corrugation can be lifted by the intercalation of hydrogen atoms underneath the layer, leading to effects observable also at the macroscopic scale. Bombarding the corrugated layer with low-energy Ar ions leads to the trapping of individual Ar atoms or small Ar clusters underneath specific sites of the corrugated layer, while surprisingly uniform 2 nm wide voids in the h-BN layer form after annealing thus prepared surfaces. I will also report on our progress in growing large area samples of h-BN monolayers on single-crystalline Rh(111) films at the four-inch wafer scale and their characterization.