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Borophene: Served on a silver platter

Nature Reviews Materials volume 1, Article number: 16083 (2016) Cite this article

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When the 2D allotrope of boron — borophene — was first synthesized in late 2015, it displayed curious features not observed in other 2D materials, including a striped pattern. Now, combining first-principles calculations with ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunnelling microscopy, this pattern is revealed as energetically favoured undulations. This study, reported in Nano Letters, expands our knowledge of this new 2D material and has implications for the development of flexible and wearable electronic devices.

Borophene was first predicted by Boris Yakobson, Rice University, who co-led the present study. “We predicted a variety of boron polymorphs and then even suggested which exactly should form on a ‘silver platter’. This culminated when the Northwestern and Argonne guys produced it in the lab!”, says Yakobson. The two groups he refers to are those of Mark Hersam and Nathan Guisinger, who teamed up with Yakobson in this work. “Guided by predictive modelling, we recently discovered and experimentally synthesized a new 2D boron allotrope. Our atomic-scale characterization revealed several interesting features that we attributed to strain but did not fully understand,” says Guisinger. The most exciting of these features was the striped pattern that borophene assumed on a silver substrate. “The experiment showed more than we theorists could imagine: these striped phases and this puzzling pattern led us to the present collaboration,” explains Yakobson.

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References

  1. Zhang, Z. et al. Substrate-induced nanoscale undulations of borophene on silver. Nano Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b03349 (2016)

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Authors
  1. Adam Brotchie
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Brotchie, A. Borophene: Served on a silver platter. Nat Rev Mater 1, 16083 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/natrevmats.2016.83

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