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Nano Research 2022, 15(8): 7577-7583 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4388-1
Research Article | Issue | Published: 31 May 2022

Abnormal anti-oxidation behavior of hexagonal boron nitride grown on copper

Show Author's Information Li Wang1,2,§( ),  Jiajie Qi1,§,  Shuai Zhang3,§,  Mingchao Ding2,  Wei Wei4,  Jinhuan Wang1,5,  Zhihong Zhang1,  Ruixi Qiao6,  Zhibin Zhang1,  Zehui Li1,  Kehai Liu7,  Ying Fu7,  Hao Hong1,  Can Liu1,  Muhong Wu6,  Wenlong Wang2,  Jun He8,  Yi Cui4,  Qunyang Li3( ),  Xuedong Bai2,9( ),  Kaihui Liu1,6( )
State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Department of Engineering Mechanics, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
International Centre for Quantum Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Quantum Matter, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dongguan 523808, China
CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190, China
School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

§ Li Wang, Jiajie Qi, and Shuai Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
hexagonal boron nitride, anti-oxidation of metals, nanoscale corrugation, cyclic reannealing method
Topics:
Surface morphology
Cite this article:
Wang L, Qi J, Zhang S, et al. Abnormal anti-oxidation behavior of hexagonal boron nitride grown on copper. Nano Research, 2022, 15(8): 7577-7583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4388-1
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Atomic-layered hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is expected to be the best two-dimensional (2D) anti-oxidation layer on metals for its incomparable impermeability, insulativity, and stability, as well as the progressive bottom-up growth techniques to ensure fast coating on metal surface in large area. However, its real anti-oxidation ability in practice is found to be unsatisfactory and nonuniform, and the main obstacle to achieving ideal anti-oxidation performance lies in unclear anti-oxidation behavior at special interface between 2D hBN and three-dimensional (3D) metals. Herein, system of monolayer hBN grown on copper (Cu) foils with various lattice orientations was grown to investigate the anti-oxidation behavior of different interlayer configurations. By using structural characterizations together with analysis of topography, we surprisingly found that stronger interlayer coupling led to worse anti-oxidation performance owing to fast diffusion of O2 through higher hBN corrugations generated at the commensurate hBN/Cu(111) configuration. In view of this, we developed the approach of cyclic reannealing that can effectively flatten corrugations and steps, and therefore improve the anti-oxidation performance to a great extent. This work provides a more in-depth understanding of anti-oxidation behavior of 2D materials grown on 3D metals, and a practical method to pave the way for its large-scale applications in future.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Abnormal anti-oxidation behavior of hexagonal boron nitride grown on copper

Show Author's information Li Wang1,2,§( ), Jiajie Qi1,§, Shuai Zhang3,§, Mingchao Ding2, Wei Wei4, Jinhuan Wang1,5, Zhihong Zhang1, Ruixi Qiao6, Zhibin Zhang1, Zehui Li1, Kehai Liu7, Ying Fu7, Hao Hong1, Can Liu1, Muhong Wu6, Wenlong Wang2, Jun He8, Yi Cui4, Qunyang Li3( ), Xuedong Bai2,9( ), Kaihui Liu1,6( )
State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Department of Engineering Mechanics, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
International Centre for Quantum Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Quantum Matter, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dongguan 523808, China
CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190, China
School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

§ Li Wang, Jiajie Qi, and Shuai Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Atomic-layered hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is expected to be the best two-dimensional (2D) anti-oxidation layer on metals for its incomparable impermeability, insulativity, and stability, as well as the progressive bottom-up growth techniques to ensure fast coating on metal surface in large area. However, its real anti-oxidation ability in practice is found to be unsatisfactory and nonuniform, and the main obstacle to achieving ideal anti-oxidation performance lies in unclear anti-oxidation behavior at special interface between 2D hBN and three-dimensional (3D) metals. Herein, system of monolayer hBN grown on copper (Cu) foils with various lattice orientations was grown to investigate the anti-oxidation behavior of different interlayer configurations. By using structural characterizations together with analysis of topography, we surprisingly found that stronger interlayer coupling led to worse anti-oxidation performance owing to fast diffusion of O2 through higher hBN corrugations generated at the commensurate hBN/Cu(111) configuration. In view of this, we developed the approach of cyclic reannealing that can effectively flatten corrugations and steps, and therefore improve the anti-oxidation performance to a great extent. This work provides a more in-depth understanding of anti-oxidation behavior of 2D materials grown on 3D metals, and a practical method to pave the way for its large-scale applications in future.

Keywords: hexagonal boron nitride, anti-oxidation of metals, nanoscale corrugation, cyclic reannealing method

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 20 December 2021
Revised: 15 March 2022
Accepted: 05 April 2022
Published: 31 May 2022
Issue date: August 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Guangdong Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research (2021B0301030002), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52025023, 51991342, 52021006, 11888101, 12025203, and 12104493), the Key Research & Development Program of Guangdong Province (Nos. 2020B010189001, 2019B010931001, and 2018B030327001), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nos. XDB33000000 and XDB33030200), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. JQ19004), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20170426), the Initiative Program of State Key Laboratory of Tribology (No. SKLT2019B02), the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFA0703700), Program from Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. E0K5231B11), and the Pearl River Talent Recruitment Program of Guangdong Province (No. 2019ZT08C321). The authors are grateful for the support from the Electron Microscopy Laboratory in Peking University for the use of electron microscope, and the Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation (NANO-X) of Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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