Issue 36, 2016

Electron beam directed etching of hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a wide bandgap van der Waals material with unique optical properties that make it attractive for two dimensional (2D) photonic and optoelectronic devices. However, broad deployment and exploitation of hBN is limited by alack of suitable material and device processing and nano prototyping techniques. Here we present a high resolution, single step electron beam technique for chemical dry etching of hBN. Etching is achieved using H2O as a precursor gas, at both room temperature and elevated hBN temperatures. The technique enables damage-free, nano scale, iterative patterning of supported and suspended 2D hBN, thus opening the door to facile fabrication of hBN-based 2D heterostructures and devices.

Graphical abstract: Electron beam directed etching of hexagonal boron nitride

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
20 Jun 2016
Accepted
30 Aug 2016
First published
01 Sep 2016
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale, 2016,8, 16182-16186

Author version available

Electron beam directed etching of hexagonal boron nitride

C. Elbadawi, T. T. Tran, M. Kolíbal, T. Šikola, J. Scott, Q. Cai, L. H. Li, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, M. Toth, I. Aharonovich and C. Lobo, Nanoscale, 2016, 8, 16182 DOI: 10.1039/C6NR04959A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements