Promising for nanoelectronics and quantum information technology
Two-dimensional materials, which are exotic materials that have length and width but are only one or two atoms thick, hold the promise of dramatically improving the performance of electronic devices, solar cells, and medical equipment. One of the most exciting breakthroughs in 2D materials science in recent decades was the 2004 "advent" of graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon that is just one atom thick but 200 times stronger than steel. The two inventors, Andre Heim and Konstantin Novoselov, were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, and in 2015, a team including the Center for Nanomaterials at Argonne National Laboratory synthesized boron - a sheet of boron just one atom thick - for the first time. However, while graphene is one of many identical atomic layers in the common material graphite, boronene has no similar parent structure, making it difficult to prepare. Moreover, boronene reacts quickly with air, which means it is extremely unstable and prone to deformation.
Mark Hersham, a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University, explains, "There are all kinds of problems with boronene on its own, but when we mix boronene with hydrogen, the product suddenly becomes much more stable, with a lot of potential for applications in emerging fields like nanoelectronics and quantum information technology."
In the latest study, the team generated boronene on a silver substrate and then brought it into contact with hydrogen to form hydrogenated boronene. They then combined a scanning tunneling microscope and computer vision-based algorithms to compare theoretical models of the structure with experimental measurements, revealing the complex structure of the hydrogenated boronene. Moreover, the team's automated analysis technique could be used to identify other complex nanostructures in the future.
The lab's Pierre Dallancette said, "What's really encouraging about our new study is that hydroborene nanosheets on silver substrates are different from borenes - hydroborenes are quite stable. This means that boron hydride should be easy to combine with other materials to make new devices for optoelectronics, and such light-control and light-emitting devices could be used in areas such as telecommunications and medical devices."
For her part, Maria Chen, a nanoscientist at the lab, said, "These findings are an important step forward in terms of realizing the great potential of boron hydride in the field of nanoelectronics."