Unusual role of epilayer–substrate interactions in determining orientational relations in van der Waals epitaxy

摘要

Using selected-area low-energy electron diffraction analysis, we showed strict orientational alignment of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) crystallites with Cu(100) surface lattices of Cu foil substrates during atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition. In sharp contrast, the graphene–Cu(100) system is well-known to assume a wide range of rotations despite graphene’s crystallographic similarity to h-BN. Our density functional theory calculations uncovered the origin of this surprising difference: The crystallite orientation is determined during nucleation by interactions between the cluster’s edges and the substrate. Unlike the weaker B– and N–Cu interactions, strong C–Cu interactions rearrange surface Cu atoms, resulting in the aligned geometry not being a distinct minimum in total energy. The discovery made in this specific case runs counter to the conventional wisdom that strong epilayer–substrate interactions enhance orientational alignment in epitaxy and sheds light on the factors that determine orientational relation in van der Waals epitaxy of 2D materials.