Nanotechnology Now – Press Release: Borophene on silver grows freely into an atomic ‘skin’: Rice scientists lead effort to improve manufacture of valuable 2D material


Home > Press > Borophene on silver grows freely into an atomic ‘skin’: Rice scientists lead effort to improve manufacture of valuable 2D material

An illustration shows how edges are connected at the corners of a borophene flake. Materials scientists led by Rice University have predicted that the shape of borophene, the 2D allotrope of boron, can be controlled. (Credit: Zhuhua Zhang/Rice University/Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
An illustration shows how edges are connected at the corners of a borophene flake. Materials scientists led by Rice University have predicted that the shape of borophene, the 2D allotrope of boron, can be controlled. (Credit: Zhuhua Zhang/Rice University/Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)

Abstract:
Borophene has a nearly perfect partner in a form of silver that could help the trendy two-dimensional material grow to unheard-of lengths.

Borophene on silver grows freely into an atomic ‘skin’: Rice scientists lead effort to improve manufacture of valuable 2D material


Houston, TX | Posted on October 1st, 2019

A well-ordered lattice of silver atoms makes it possible to speed the growth of pristine borophene, the atom-thick allotrope of boron that so far can only form via synthesis by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE).

By using a silver substrate and through careful manipulation of temperature and deposition rate, scientists have discovered they can grow elongated hexagon-shaped flakes of borophene. They suggested the use of a proper metal substrate could facilitate the growth of ultrathin, narrow borophene ribbons.

New work published in Science Advances by researchers at Rice and Northwestern universities, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Argonne National Laboratory will help streamline the manufacture of the conductive material, which shows potential for use in wearable and transparent electronics, plasmonic sensors and energy storage.

That potential has fueled efforts to make it easier to grow, led by Rice materials scientist Boris Yakobson, a theorist who predicted that borophene could be synthesized. He and collaborators Mark Hersam at Northwestern and lead author Zhuhua Zhang, a Rice alumnus and now a professor at Nanjing, have now demonstrated through theory and experimentation that large-scale, high-quality samples of borophene are not only possible but also allow qualitative understanding of their growth patterns.

Unlike the repeating atomic lattices found in graphene and hexagonal boron nitride, borophene incorporates a regular, woven-in array of “vacancies,” missing atoms that leave hexagonal holes among the triangles. This not only affects the material’s electronic properties but also influences how new atoms join the flake as it is being formed.

The Yakobson lab’s calculations showed the edge energies — atoms that are less stable along the edges of 2D materials than those in the interior — are significantly lower than those in graphene and boron nitride and that the conditions can be manipulated to tune the edges for optimum growth of ribbons.

Initial calculations showed borophene in equilibrium should form as a rectangle, but experiments proved otherwise.

The confounding factor was in the flake’s edges that, forced by the vacancies, appear in variations of zigzag and armchair configurations. Atoms settle one by one into the “kinks” that appear along the edges, but as armchairs are more energetically stable and present a higher barrier to the atoms, they prefer to join the zigzags. Rather than extending the flakes in all directions, the atoms are selective about where they settle and elongate the structure instead.

“On the atomic scale, edges don’t act as though you cut the lattice with a pair of scissors,” Yakobson said. “The dangling bonds you create reconnect with their neighbors, and the edge atoms adapt slightly different, reconstructed configurations.

“So the origin of the shapes must not lie in equilibrium,” he said. “They are caused by the kinetics of growth, how fast or slow the side edges advance. Opportunely, we had developed a theoretical framework for graphene, a nanoreactor model that works for other 2D materials, including boron.”

Controlling the flow of atoms as well as temperature gives the researchers a simpler way to control borophene synthesis.

“Silver (111) provides a landing for boron atoms, which then diffuse along the surface to find the edges of a growing borophene flake,” Zhang said. “Upon arrival, the boron atoms are lifted onto the edges by silver, but how difficult such a lift is depends on the edge’s orientation. As a result, a pair of opposite zigzag edges grow very slowly while all other edges grow very fast, manifested as an elongation of the boron flake.”

The researchers said the ability to grow needlelike ribbons of borophene gives them the potential to serve as atom-width conductive wires for nanoelectronics devices.

“Graphene-based electronics that have been conceived so far mostly rely on ribbonlike building blocks,” Yakobson said. “Metallic boron ribbons with high conductivity will be a natural match as interconnects in circuitry.”

Co-authors of the paper are Xiaolong Liu of Northwestern, Nathan Guisinger of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials, Andrew Mannix of Argonne and Northwestern, and Zhili Hu of Nanjing and Rice. Yakobson is the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering and a professor of chemistry at Rice. Hersam is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, the State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, the Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation supported the research.

####

About Rice University
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,962 undergraduates and 3,027 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 4 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

For more information, please click here

Contacts:
Jeff Falk
713-348-6775

Mike Williams
713-348-6728

Copyright © Rice University

If you have a comment, please Contact us.

Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

Bookmark:
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Furl
Facebook

Read the abstract at:

Yakobson Research Group:

Hersam Research Group:

News and information

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development October 4th, 2019

Researchers synthesize ‘impossible’ superconductor October 3rd, 2019

Oxford Instruments Supplies HLJ Technology Co. Ltd., with Plasma Etch and Deposition Solutions for the fabrication of VCSELS on 6 inch wafers October 3rd, 2019

Graphene/ Graphite

Physicists found weak spots in ceramic/graphene composites: Physicists found out the structures in nanomaterials made of ceramic and graphene plates, in which cracks appear most frequently September 27th, 2019

The future of materials with graphene nanotubes starts in Japan September 19th, 2019

New health monitors are flexible, transparent and graphene enabled September 13th, 2019

Can’t get thinner than this: synthesis of atomically flat boron sheets August 23rd, 2019

Wearable electronics

New health monitors are flexible, transparent and graphene enabled September 13th, 2019

ULVAC Launches Revolutionary PZT Piezoelectric Thin-film Process Technology and HVM Solution for MEMS Sensors/Actuators: Enabling Reliable, High-quality Film Production for Next Generation Devices August 16th, 2019

Flexible Electronics

New health monitors are flexible, transparent and graphene enabled September 13th, 2019

Future of portable electronics — Novel organic semiconductor with exciting properties: Researchers synthesize a new substance that can potentially be adapted to form a semiconductor with wide applications in electronics September 13th, 2019

2 Dimensional Materials

Can’t get thinner than this: synthesis of atomically flat boron sheets August 23rd, 2019

You’re not so tough, h-BN: Rice University chemists find new path to make strong 2D material better for applications August 14th, 2019

Govt.-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Machine learning at the quantum lab September 27th, 2019

CCNY physicists score double hit in LED research September 27th, 2019

Novel nanogels hold promise for improved drug delivery to cancer patients: ‘Precision Medicine’ approach underpins UT Austin engineers’ development of multifunctional nanogel September 27th, 2019

Possible Futures

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development October 4th, 2019

Researchers synthesize ‘impossible’ superconductor October 3rd, 2019

Researchers repurpose failed cancer drug into printable semiconductor October 3rd, 2019

Sensors

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Researchers repurpose failed cancer drug into printable semiconductor October 3rd, 2019

MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress Technology Showcase Finalists Highlight Innovations in Automotive, Biomedical and Consumer Electronics: MSIG MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress – October 22-24, 2019, Coronado, Calif. October 1st, 2019

Nano bulb lights novel path: Rice University engineers create tunable, nanoscale, incandescent light source September 20th, 2019

Discoveries

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development October 4th, 2019

Researchers synthesize ‘impossible’ superconductor October 3rd, 2019

Researchers repurpose failed cancer drug into printable semiconductor October 3rd, 2019

Announcements

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development October 4th, 2019

Researchers synthesize ‘impossible’ superconductor October 3rd, 2019

Oxford Instruments Supplies HLJ Technology Co. Ltd., with Plasma Etch and Deposition Solutions for the fabrication of VCSELS on 6 inch wafers October 3rd, 2019

Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers

Product authentication at your fingertips: UC Riverside-led research brings rapid and reversible switching of plasmonic color to solids October 4th, 2019

Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development October 4th, 2019

Researchers synthesize ‘impossible’ superconductor October 3rd, 2019

Researchers repurpose failed cancer drug into printable semiconductor October 3rd, 2019

Battery Technology/Capacitors/Generators/Piezoelectrics/Thermoelectrics/Energy storage

New materials to help stop lithium-ion battery fires, explosions and improve battery performance October 2nd, 2019

Turning heat into electricity: A new thermoelectric material developed at FEFU: Young scientists from FEFU manufactured new thermoelectric material based on strontium titanate and titanium oxide September 27th, 2019

‘Nanochains’ could increase battery capacity, cut charging time September 20th, 2019

The future of materials with graphene nanotubes starts in Japan September 19th, 2019

Research partnerships

Machine learning at the quantum lab September 27th, 2019

SMART announces a revolutionary tech to study cell nanomechanics: New research discovery enables scientists to study membrane mechanics of cell’s nucleus, revolutionising the understanding of metastatic cancers as well as opening the doors for identification of stem cells for the September 20th, 2019

Uncovering the hidden “noise” that can kill qubits: New detection tool could be used to make quantum computers robust against unwanted environmental disturbances September 17th, 2019

One-atom switch supercharges fluorescent dyes: Rice University lab discovers simple technique to make biocompatible ‘turn-on’ dyes September 13th, 2019

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *