Electron backscatter diffraction study of hexagonal boron nitride growth on Cu single-crystal substrates

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is an important material for the development of new 2D heterostructures. To enable this development, the relationship between crystal growth and the substrate orientation must be explored and understood. In this study, we simultaneously grew h-BN on different orientations of Cu substrates to establish the impact of substrate structure on the growth habit of thin h-BN layers. The substrates studied were a polycrystalline Cu foil, Cu(100), Cu(110), and Cu(111). Fourier transform grazing-incidence infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (FT-IRRAS) was used to identify h-BN on copper substrates. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to determine the effective thickness of the h-BN. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) were used to measure the morphology of the films and postgrowth crystal structure of the Cu substrates, respectively. Combining the SEM and EBSD images allowed for the correlation between h-BN film coverage and the crystal structure of Cu. It was found that the growth rate was inversely proportional to the surface free energy of the Cu surface, with Cu(111) having the most h-BN surface coverage. The Cu foil predominately crystallized with a (100) surface orientation, and likewise had a film coverage very close to the Cu(100).