Facile synthesis of aqueous-dispersed luminescent nanosheets from non-layered lanthanum hexaboride.

Two-dimensional nanosheets of non-layered materials have been considered as inaccessible through exfoliation techniques, due to their intrinsic three-dimensional lattice structure. Herein we report the successful synthesis of nanosheets from non-layered, lanthanum hexaboride through a facile, solution-assisted, surfactant-free, sonication. The morphological studies clearly show the presence of nanosheets having thickness of a few nanometers, and having lateral dimensions of several hundreds of nanometres.