Understanding vapor phase growth of hexagonal boron nitride.

Hexagonal boron nitride (BN), with its atomically flat structure, excellent chemical stability, and large band gap energy (∼6 eV), serves as an exemplary 2D insulator in electronics. Additionally, it offers exceptional attributes for the growth and encapsulation of semiconductor transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Current methodologies for producing BN thin films primarily involve exfoliating multi-layer or bulk crystals and thin film growth chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which entails the thermal decomposition and surface reaction of molecular precursors like ammonia boranes (NHBH) and borazine (BNH).

Single source precursor route to nanometric tin chalcogenides.

Low-temperature solution phase synthesis of nanomaterials using designed molecular precursors enjoys tremendous advantages over traditional high-temperature solid-state synthesis. These include atomic-level control over stoichiometry, homogeneous elemental dispersion and uniformly distributed nanoparticles. For exploiting these advantages, however, rationally designed molecular complexes having certain properties are usually required.