Graphene-Boron Nitride Nanohybrid Materials

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Graphene Boron Nitride nanohybrid is a hybrid between graphene and boron nitride nanosheets.  Graphene and boron nitride individually contain intrinsic conductivity and electrical insulation properties.  The mixture of these two compounds may be useful to advance the development and understanding of electronics.

Several efforts have been made to create hybrid nanomaterials to explore their novel properties compared to their individual constituents.[1] Studies have shown that nanohybrid materials distinctively utilize the best aspects of the individual constituents along with their novel functionalities though structural integrity and interfacial chemical bonding of the constituents.[2]

Electronic Structures

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Graphene

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Graphene is formed by aligning carbon atoms two-dimensionally in a planar honeycomb lattice.[3] Layers of graphene make up graphite.  Graphene is known to be 100 times stronger than the strongest steel with a hypothetical thickness of 3.35Å which is equal to the thickness of the graphene layer.[4]  Each graphene layer has a specific surface area of ~2630 m2/g, thermal conductivity of ~5000 W/mK, a high Young’s modulus of ~1000 GPa.[5] This makes a graphene ideal for electrical transport.[6]  Graphene conducts heat and electricity efficiently and is nearly transparent.[7]

Boron Nitride

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Boron nitride exists in various crystalline form in nature but most stable as a structured hexagonal carbon lattice.  It has a chemical formula of BN. Comparing to graphene, boron nitride is more superior with mechanical properties, thermal conductivity, and electrical insulation.[8]  Boron nitride is extremely hard semiconductor and contains wide band-gap energy corresponding to the UV region.  

Properties

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Graphene boron nitride nanohybrid materials are created through advanced methods such as electron beam welding[9] and chemical vapor deposition[10].   The electronic band gap energy between the valence and conduction bands in graphene can be tuned to create different junction configurations to create a pillared graphene and hybrid pillared boron nitride via tight binding approach.  The junctions were created by tuning the electronic properties of graphene/carbon nanotube (CNT) and boron nitride nanotube(BNNT). CNT and BNNT were exposed to two-dimensional single and bilayer defected graphenes.  This resulted in two different junction configurations: one symmetric junction with two heptagonal rings and one asymmetric junction with three octagonal rings.[11]  Comparing the two configurations, the octagonal junction seems to be more stable.  The octagonal junction had considerably higher the pi-pi stacking interactions which induced orbital overlap and mixing between the C atoms of the graphene.  This introduced a higher band gap, implying effective insulating properties.

Applications

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Graphene

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Some applications for graphene are field-effect transistors, supercapacitors, batteries, sensors, and nanocomposites.[12]

Boron Nitride

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Some applications for boron nitride are optoelectronic devices and heat-releasing composite materials.[13] Boron nitride has been traditionally used as parts of a high-temperature equipment.  It also has potential use in nanotechnology. 

Graphene Boron Nitride Nanohybrid

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Graphene boron nitride nanohybrid materials may be useful for further development in nanoelectronics[14] and 3D thermal and mechanical properties[15].  Theoretical and experimental studies have demonstrated straining of graphene can result in high flexibility and can tune the electronic structure of graphene to produce enormous pseudomagnetic fields.[16] This new theory opens up new possibilities in straining graphene boron nitride hybrid to advance new concepts of electronics.  

References

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  1. ^ Sazonova, V.; Yaish, Y.; Üstünel, H.; Roundy, D.; Arias, T. A.; McEuen, P. L. Nature 2004431 (7006), 284–287.
  2. ^ Dimitrakakis, G. K.; Tylianakis, E.; Froudakis, G. E. Nano Letters 20088 (10), 3166–3170.
  3. ^ Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov, S. V.; Jiang, D.; Katsnelson, M. I.; Grigorieva, I. V.; Dubonos, S. V.; Firsov, A. A. Nature 2005438 (7065), 197–200. 
  4. ^ Jonson, M. Scientific Background on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2010, GRAPHENE; 2010.
  5. ^ Zhao, X.; Zhang, Q.; Chen, D.; Lu, P. Macromolecules 201144 (7), 2392–2392.
  6. ^ Zhi, C.; Bando, Y.; Tang, C.; Honda, S.; Kuwahara, H.; Golberg, D. Journal of Materials Research 200621 (11), 2794–2800.
  7. ^ Tsoukleri, G.; Parthenios, J.; Papagelis, K.; Jalil, R.; Ferrari, A. C.; Geim, A. K.; Novoselov, K. S.; Galiotis, C. Small 20095 (21), 2397–2402.
  8. ^ ] Zeng, H.; Zhi, C.; Zhang, Z.; Wei, X.; Wang, X.; Guo, W.; Bando, Y.; Golberg, D. Nano Letters 201010 (12), 5049–5055. 
  9. ^ Terrones, M.; Banhart, F.; Grobert, N.; Charlier, J.-C.; Terrones, H.; Ajayan, P. M. Physical Review Letters 200289 (7).
  10. ^ Kondo, D.; Sato, S.; Awano, Y. Applied Physics Express 20081, 074003.
  11. ^ Shayeganfar, F.; Shahsavari, R. Carbon 201699, 523–532.
  12. ^ Yuan, Y.; Zhao, D.; Zhu, H.; Zhang, L. Synthesis 20112011 (11), 1792–1798. 
  13. ^ Zhi, C.; Bando, Y.; Tang, C.; Honda, S.; Kuwahara, H.; Golberg, D. Journal of Materials Research 200621 (11), 2794–2800. 
  14. ^ Varshney, V.; Patnaik, S. S.; Roy, A. K.; Froudakis, G.; Farmer, B. L. ACS Nano 20104 (2), 1153–1161.
  15. ^ Sakhavand, N.; Shahsavari, R. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 20157 (33), 18312–18319.
  16. ^ Levy, N.; Burke, S. A.; Meaker, K. L.; Panlasigui, M.; Zettl, A.; Guinea, F.; Neto, A. H. C.; Crommie, M. F. Science 2010329 (5991), 544–547. 

See also

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