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Updated: May 18, 2026

Probe Type II Band Alignment in One-Dimensional Van Der Waals Heterostructures Using First-Principles Calculations
Published on: October 12, 2019
Ring state for single transition metal atoms on boron nitride on Rh(111)
Fabian Donat Natterer1, François Patthey, Harald Brune
1Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (ICMP), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
The low-temperature adsorption of isolated transition metal adatoms (Mn, Co, and Fe) onto hexagonal boron nitride monolayers on Rh(111) creates a bistable adsorption complex. The first state considerably weakens the hexagonal boron nitride- (h-BN-) substrate bond for 60 BN unit cells, leading to a highly symmetric ring in STM images, while the second state is imaged as a conventional adatom and leaves the BN-substrate interaction intact. We demonstrate reversible switching between the two states and, thus, controlled pinning and unpinning of the h-BN layer from the metal substrate. I(z) and d lnI/dz curves are used to reveal the BN deformation in the ring state.
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