Electron beam directed etching of hexagonal boron nitride.
Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a wide bandgap van der Waals material with unique optical properties that make it attractive for two dimensional (2D) photonic and optoelectronic devices. However, broad deployment and exploitation of hBN is limited by alack of suitable material and device processing and nano prototyping techniques. Here we present a high resolution, single step electron beam technique for chemical dry etching of hBN. Etching is achieved using H2O as a precursor gas, at both room temperature and elevated hBN temperatures. The technique enables damage-free, nano scale, iterative patterning of supported and suspended 2D hBN, thus opening the door to facile fabrication of hBN-based 2D heterostructures and devices.
School of Physics and Advanced Materials, University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, New South Wales 2007, Australia. Milos.Toth@uts.edu.au Igor.Aharonovich@uts.edu.au Charlene.Lobo@uts.edu.au.
Christopher
C
Elbadawi
Trong Toan
TT
Tran
Miroslav
M
Kolíbal
Tomáš
T
Šikola
John
J
Scott
Qiran
Q
Cai
Lu Hua
LH
Li
Takashi
T
Taniguchi
Kenji
K
Watanabe
Milos
M
Toth
Igor
I
Aharonovich
Charlene
C
Lobo