2020/08/21 by Qiran Cai, Declan Scullion, Wei Gan +8
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic layer deposition #Atomic mass #Atomic physics #Boron #Boron nitride #Composite material #Condensed matter physics #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Optoelectronics #Phonon #Physics #Semiconductor #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #Thermal conductivity #Thermal properties of materials #Thin film #Thin layers #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.125.085902
published as Physical Review Letters 125, 085902 (2020)
openalex publication_date 2020/08/21 · arxiv created 2020/08/22 · arxiv updated 2020/08/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Materials with high thermal conductivities (κ) are valuable to solve the challenge of waste heat dissipation in highly integrated and miniaturized modern devices. Herein, we report the first synthesis of atomically thin isotopically pure hexagonal boron nitride (BN) and its one of the highest κ among all semiconductors and electric insulators. Single atomic layer (1L) BN enriched with 11B has a κ up to 1009 W/mK at room temperature. We find that the isotope engineering mainly suppresses the out-of-plane optical (ZO) phonon scatterings in BN, which subsequently reduces acoustic-optical scatterings between ZO and transverse acoustic (TA) and longitudinal acoustic phonons. On the other hand, reducing the thickness to a single atomic layer diminishes the interlayer interactions and hence umklapp scatterings of the out-of-plane acoustic (ZA) phonons, though this thickness-induced κ enhancement is not as dramatic as that in naturally occurring BN. With many of its unique properties, atomically thin monoisotopic BN is promising on heat management in van der Waals devices and future flexible electronics. The isotope engineering of atomically thin BN may also open up other appealing applications and opportunities in 2D materials yet to be explored.