• Applied Microscopy
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.217-226
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• 2016

Monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a phenomenal two-dimensional material; most of its physical properties rival those of graphene because of their structural similarities. This intriguing material has thus spurred scientists and researchers to develop novel synthetic methods to attain scalability for enabling its practical utilization. When probing the growth behaviors and structural characteristics of h-BN, the use of appropriate characterization techniques is important. In this review, we detail the use of scanning and transmission electron microscopies to investigate the atomic configurations of monolayer and bilayer h-BN grown via chemical vapor deposition. These advanced microscopy techniques have been demonstrated to provide intimate insights to the atomic structures of h-BN, which can be interpreted directly or indirectly using known growth mechanisms and existing theoretical calculations. This review provides a collective understanding of the structural characteristics and defects of synthetic h-BN films and facilitates a better perspective toward the development of new and improved synthesis techniques.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.467-471
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• 1999

BN films were grown on silicon (l00) substrate by magnetically enhanced activated reactive evaporation (ME-ARE) with pulsed DC power instead of r.f. for substrate biasing. The deposited films were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). FTIR results show that the intensity of absorption band of $sp^2$ bond of BN decreased and that of $sp^3$ bond of c-BN increased with increasing pulsed DC bias voltage applied to substrate. The initially grown layer at the interface was observed by TEM and considered to be of$ sp^2$-bonded BN. The cross-sectional and planar TEM micrographs show that the upper layer on the initial layer was the single phase c-BN. It is concluded that cubic boron nitride films could be synthesized by ME-ARE process with pulsed DC biasing.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.344.2-344.2
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• 2016

Fully and partially grown hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) on Cu foil, synthesized by chemical vapor deposition method, was studied using Raman and SEM measurements. Fully and partially grown samples were successfully made from borane-ammonia complex to controlling pressure and growth time. The fully grown h-BN and partially grown h-BN exhibits a ~ 1370 cm-1 B-N vibrational mode (E2g). Especially, well-aligned triangular h-BN monolayer was observed on some domain of Cu foil using SEM measurements.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.170-170
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• 2013

We present a novel etching technique for 2-dimentional (2-D) hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) by using capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) of oxygen combined with a post-treatment by de-ionized (DI) water. Oxygen CCP etching process for h-BN has been systematically studied. It is found that a passivation layer was generated to obstruct further etching while it can be easily and radically removed by DI water. An essential cleaning effect also has been observed in the etching process, organic residues are successfully removed and the surface roughness has much decreased. Considering h-BN is the most important 2-D dielectric material and its potential application for graphene to silicon-based electronic devices, such an etching method can be widely used to control the 2-D h-BN thickness and improve the surface quality.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.591-591
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• 2013

Fully and partially grown hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) on Cu foil, synthesized by chemical vapor deposition method, was studied using Raman and SEM measurements. Fully and partially grown samples were successfully made from borane-ammonia complex to controlling pressure and growth time. The fully grown h-BN and partially grown h-BN exhibits a ~1,370 $cm^{-1}$ B-N vibrational mode ($E_{2g}$) Especially, well-aligned triangular h-BN monolayer was observed on some domain of Cu foil using SEM measurements.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.91-97
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• 2007

In this study we investigated the oxygen effect on the nucleation and its residual stress during unbalanced magnetron sputtering. Up to 0.5% in oxygen flow rate, cubic phase (c-BN) was dominated with extremely small fraction of Hexagonal phase (h-BN) of increasing trend with oxygen concentration, whereas hexagonal phase is dominated beyond 0.75% flow rate. Interestingly, the residual stress in cubic-phase-dominated films was substantially reduced with small amount of oxygen (${\sim}0.5%$) down to a low value comparable to the h-BN case. This may be because oxygen atoms break B-N $sp^3$ bonds and make B-O bonds more favorably, increasing $sp^2$ bonds preference, as revealed by FTIR and NEXAFS. It was confirmed by experimental facts that the threshold bias voltage for nucleation and growth of cubic phase were increased from -55 V to -70 V and from -50 V to -60 V respectively. The reduction of residual stress in O-added c-BN films is seemingly resulting from the microstructure of the films. The oxygen tends to increase slightly the amount of h-BN phase in the grain boundary of c-BN and the soft h-BN phase of 3D network including surrounding nano grains of cubic phase may relax the residual stress of cubic phase.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.414-419
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• 2016

Much attention has been paid to thermally conductive materials for efficient heat dissipation of electronic devices to maintain their functionality and to support lifetime span. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), which has a high thermal conductivity, is one of the most suitable materials for thermally conductive composites. In this study, we synthesize h-BN nanocrystals by pyrolysis of cost-effective precursors, boric acid, and melamine. Through pyrolysis at $900^{\circ}C$ and subsequent annealing at $1500^{\circ}C$, h-BN nanoparticles with diameters of ~80 nm are synthesized. We demonstrate that the addition of small amounts of Eu-containing salts during the preparation of melamine borate precursors significantly enhanced the crystallinity of h-BN. In particular, addition of Eu assists the growth of h-BN nanoplatelets with diameters up to ~200 nm. Polymer composites containing both spherical $Al_2O_3$ (70 vol%) and Eu-doped h-BN nanoparticles (4 vol%) show an enhanced thermal conductivity (${\lambda}{\sim}1.72W/mK$), which is larger than the thermal conductivity of polymer composites containing spherical $Al_2O_3$ (70 vol%) as the sole fillers (${\lambda}{\sim}1.48W/mK$).

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.56 no.12
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• pp.915-920
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• 2018

With the development of modern microelectronics technologies, the power density of electronic devices is rapidly increasing, due to the miniaturization or integration of device elements which operate at high frequency, high power conditions. Resulting thermal problems are known to cause power leakage, device failure and deteriorated performance. To relieve heat accumulation at the interface between chips and heat sinks, thermal interface materials (TIMs) must provide efficient heat transport in the through-plane direction. We report on the enhanced thermal conduction of $Al_2O_3-based$ polymer composites, fabricated by the surface wetting and texturing of thermally conductive hexagonal boron nitride(h-BN) nanoplatelets with large anisotropy in morphology and physical properties. The thermally conductive polymer composites were prepared with hybrid fillers of $Al_2O_3$ macro beads and surface modified h-BN nanoplatelets. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has high thermal conductivity and is one of the most suitable materials for thermally conductive polymer composites, which protect electronic devices by efficient heat dissipation. In this study, we synthesized hexagonal boron nitride nanoparticles by the pyrolysis of cost effective precursors, boric acid and melamine. Through pyrolysis at $900^{\circ}C$ and subsequent annealing at $1500^{\circ}C$, hexagonal boron nitride nanoparticles with diameters of ca. 50nm were synthesized. We demonstrate that the addition of a small amount of calcium fluoride ($CaF_2$) during the preparation of the melamine borate adduct significantly enhanced the crystallinity of the h-BN and assisted the growth of nanoplatelets up to 100nm in diameters. The addition of a small amount of h-BN enhanced the thermal conductivity of the $Al_2O_3-based$ polymer composites, from 1.45W/mK to 2.33 W/mK.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.637-639
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• 2010

Hexagonal boron nitride (BN) films were prepared. The process involved, spraying BN powder-dispersed $H_3BO_4-BCl_3$-ethyl alcohol solution on quartz plates, and the drying off quartz plates before, and annealing at $1070^{\circ}C$ in a nitrogen atmosphere. The optical energy band gap of the BN films was 5.28 eV. Photoluminescence peaks with energies of 3.44, 3.16, 2.97, and 2.35 eV at 10 K were observed and analyzed. Accordingly, these have resulted from donor-acceptor pair recombinations.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.33-37
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• 2019

In this study, the graded thermal properties of composites are obtained by difference in specific gravity of fillers including Cu, h-BN and GO powders in epoxy. Relatively heavy powders such as Cu and h-BN compared to GO mostly at the bottom layer, while light GO powders were dispersed in the top layer in the composites. The thermal conductivity of composites was gradually increased from 0.55 (0.52) W/mK to 2.82 (1.37) W/mK for GO/h-BN (GO/Cu) epoxy composites from surface to bottom. On the contrary, the coefficient of thermal expansion was decreased from 51 ppm/℃ to 23 ppm/℃ and from 57 ppm/℃ to 32 ppm/℃ for GO/Cu and GO/h-BN, respectively. The variation of thermal properties in composites is attributed due to intrinsic material properties of filler including thermal conductivity, morphology and the distribution by the specific weight of fillers. This simple strategy for realizing graded thermal composites by introducing different filler materials would be effective heat transfer at interface of heterostructure with large thermal properties such as inorganic semiconductor/plastic, metal/plastic, and semiconductor/metal.