Initial Growth of h-BN

Recently h-BN has drawn a lot of attention due to its use as an insulating layer for graphene application. Its growth on several transition metal surfaces such as Ni has been focused on their local atomic structure and superstructure formed on surfaces. However, the growth of h-BN in a large has not been studied so far. We found very interesting growth mode of h-BN on Cu surface. The shape of island is strongly dependent on the orientation of the Cu surface, which is quite different from that of the graphene on Cu. Based on the growth model, a fairly large grain size of h-BN(order of 0.1 mm) can be made. More detailed process on the growth of h-BN will be discussed.