EBSD study of substrate-mediated growth of hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract

Hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) is a promising insulating material to complement and enable graphene electronics. Given the good lattice match to graphite, graphene/h-BN heterostructures may be grown with negligible amounts of strain and defect states, resulting in high carrier mobilities approaching values for suspended graphene. Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) has emerged as one of the preferred routes for the synthesis of 2D materials for electronic applications. Here we report on the growth of h-BN by low pressure CVD, using borazine as a precursor. Electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) in conjunction with topographic imaging in the scanning electron microscope are used to investigate the change in crystal structure and orientation of three metallic catalyst substrates: Co, Ni and Cu, by high temperature processing and the growth of nanoscale h-BN domains. The behaviour of the metal foils is interpreted in light of the prevalent growth models. EBSD and imaging conditions are optimized to allow efficient acquisitions for these composite and nanostructured specimens. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.