Bevel-edge epitaxy of ferroelectric rhombohedral boron nitride single crystal. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38693415/)

These scientists wanted to make really big, high-quality layers of a special material called rhombohedral boron nitride (rBN). This material has lots of great properties like being a good insulator, having high thermal conductivity, and being very flat at the atomic level. But making big, single-crystal layers of rBN is really hard because you have to make sure all the layers are stacked in a specific way.

So, the scientists came up with a clever way to grow these big rBN layers on a nickel surface. They used a method called bevel-edge epitaxy, which helped them control the growth of the rBN layers by guiding the orientation of the boron-nitrogen bonds in each layer. This method also made sure that the layers were stacked in the right way, which is important for the material to have special properties like ferroelectricity.

After growing the rBN layers using this method, the scientists found that they had successfully made big, single-crystal layers with the right stacking and properties. This research is important because it shows a new way to grow high-quality two-dimensional materials like rBN, which can be used to make new kinds of devices in the future.

Wang L., Qi J., Wei W., Wu M., Zhang Z., Li X., Sun H., Guo Q., Cao M., Wang Q., Zhao C., Sheng Y., Liu Z., Liu C., Wu M., Xu Z., Wang W., Hong H., Gao P., Wu M., Wang ZJ., Xu X., Wang E., Ding F., Zheng X., Liu K., Bai X. Bevel-edge epitaxy of ferroelectric rhombohedral boron nitride single crystal. Nature. 2024 May;629(8010):74-79. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07286-3. Epub 2024 May 1.