Investigations of Vacancy Structures Related to Their Growth in h-BN Sheet

Abstract

The atomic, electronic, and magnetic properties of vacancy structures with triangular shape related to their growth in single hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) sheet are investigated using density functional theory calculations. We find that the optimized structures of triangular vacancies depend on the vacancy sizes with N-terminated zigzag edge. Then, vacancy structures obtained during the vacancy evolution in h-BN sheet are considered by removing a boron-nitrogen pair (BN pair) from edges of triangular vacancies. The magnetic properties of those vacancy structures are investigated by local density of states and spin densities. It is found that the stability of the optimized structures with a BN missing pair depends on the BN-pair missing position: the most stable structure is a BN-pair missing structure at the edge face region with the smallest magnetic moment.