Ultrathin Boron Growth onto Nanodiamond Surfaces via Electrophilic Boron Precursors.

Diamond as a templating substrate is largely unexplored, and the unique properties of diamond, including its large bandgap, thermal conductance, and lack of cytotoxicity, makes it versatile in emergent technologies in medicine and quantum sensing. Surface termination of an inert diamond substrate and its chemical reactivity are key in generating new bonds for nucleation and growth of an overlayer material. Oxidized high-pressure high temperature (HPHT) nanodiamonds (NDs) are largely terminated by alcohols that act as nucleophiles to initiate covalent bond formation when an electrophilic reactant is available.

Fermi Level Manipulation through Native Doping in the Topological Insulator BiSe.

The topologically protected surface states of three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators have the potential to be transformative for high-performance logic and memory devices by exploiting their specific properties such as spin-polarized current transport and defect tolerance due to suppressed backscattering. However, topological insulator based devices have been underwhelming to date primarily due to the presence of parasitic issues. An important example is the challenge of suppressing bulk conduction in BiSe and achieving Fermi levels ( E) that reside in between the bulk valence and conduction bands so that the topologically protected surface states dominate the transport.

Thickness and rotational effects in simulated HRTEM images of graphene on hexagonal boron nitride.

Recent studies have shown that when graphene is placed on a thin hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) substrate, unlike when it is placed on a typical SiO2 surface, it can closely approach the ideal carrier mobility observed in suspended graphene samples. This study further examines the epitaxial relationship between graphene and h-BN substrate with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy simulation. Virtual monolayer and multilayer stacks of h-BN were produced with a monolayer of graphene on top, on bottom, and in between h-BN layers, in order to study this interface.