GoBN

Graphene and BN-based heterostructures for high-speed electronics

A single atomic plane in the structure of graphite, graphene (Gr) has unusual electronic properties, but these are very sensitive to the environment and easily disturbed, even by the substrate that has to be used to incorporate graphene into devices. A promising avenue that emerged in 2010 involves using hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) as a substrate and encapsulating material. This material has the dual advantage of being lamellar, like graphite, and an insulator. However, the factor limiting the development of Gr - hBN heterostructure technology is the difficulty of synthesising and integrating large, high-quality hBN films.

The goal of the GoBN project has been to address this obstacle by developing ways of synthesising hBN crystals and films through better knowledge of the material’s structural and optical properties, ultimately building demonstrators based on Gr-BN technology for high-frequency electronics.

The project

ANR programme: Generic Call for Proposals

Edition, project duration: 2014, 42 months

ANR grant: € 477,725

Coordinator:

Annick Loiseau
Laboratoire d’Étude des Microstructures – CNRS-ONERA, U. Paris Saclay
annick.loiseau@onera.fr

Project region: Île-de-France

Main publication or contribution:

Bright luminescence from indirect and strongly bound excitons in hBN
L. Schué, L. Sponza, A. Plaud, H. Bensalah, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, F. Ducastelle, A. Loiseau, J. Barjon. Physical Review Letters 122 (2019) 067401

Partners:

Groupe d’Étude de la Matière Condensée (GEMaC), UVSQ-CNRS, U. Paris Saclay.
Laboratoire Pierre Aigrain (LPA) aujourd’hui / now Laboratoire de Physique, (ENS CNRS)
Laboratoire des Matériaux Inorganiques (LMI), (UCBL-CNRS).
Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques (MPQ), U. Paris Diderot-CNRS, U. de Paris.

Projet GoBN — a) Single crystal synthesised by a borazine ceramisation process [Li et al., ACS Appl. Nano Mater, 3, 1508 (2020)]. b) Electron microscope image of the atomic arrangement in a transverse section of a multi-layer BN film synthesised using CVD on a single-crystal Ni substrate [C Backes et al., 2D Mat, 7, 022001 (2020)]. c) Comparative variation in luminescence efficiency of hBN and diamond crystals measured using cathodoluminescence depending on temperature [Schué et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2019)]. d) Hot electron relaxation in a GoBN device due to the phonon properties of hBN [Baudin et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. (2019), 1904783]. © A. Loiseau

perspectives

GoBN has helped to develop the growth of multi-layer BN films, an alternative source of millimetre-scale hBN crystals and a characterisation procedure based on cathodoluminescence and to show that BN acts as an active component elevating the properties of graphene. GoBN has led to the creation of a technology platform used by the European Graphene Flagship project.