Controlled Growth of Large-Area Uniform Multilayer Hexagonal Boron Nitride as an Effective 2D Substrate

Multilayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is an ideal insulator for two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, because h-BN screens out influences from surroundings, allowing one to observe intrinsic physical properties of the 2D materials. However, the synthesis of large and uniform multilayer h-BN is still very challenging because it is difficult to control the segregation process of B and N atoms from metal catalysts during chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth. Here, we demonstrate CVD growth of multilayer h-BN with high uniformity by using the Ni-Fe alloy film and borazine (B₃H₆N₃) as catalyst and precursor, respectively. Combining Ni and Fe metals tunes the solubilities of B and N atoms and, at the same time, allows one to engineer the metal crystallinity, which stimulates the uniform segregation of multilayer h-BN. Furthermore, we demonstrate that triangular WS₂ grains grown on the h-BN show photoluminescence stronger than that grown on a bare SiO₂ substrate. The PL line width of WS₂/h-BN (the minimum and mean widths are 24 and 43 meV, respectively) is much narrower than those of WS₂/SiO₂ (44 and 67 meV), indicating the effectiveness of our CVD-grown multilayer h-BN as an insulating layer. Large-area, multilayer h-BN realized in this work will provide an excellent platform for developing practical applications of 2D materials.