Oxidizing Hexagonal Boron Nitride into Fluorescent Structures by Photodissociated Directional Oxygen Radical

Chenhui Liang; Yating Sha; Jingxian Huang; Chao Zhang; Shubin Su; Hao Li; Guohua Wang; Kaihui Liu; Fei Wang; Haomin Wang; Weidong Luo; Guorui Chen; Tianru Wu; Xiaoming Xie; Dong Qian; Haihua Tao

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00284

Oxidizing Hexagonal Boron Nitride into Fluorescent Structures by Photodissociated Directional Oxygen Radical

J Phys Chem Lett. 2022 Apr 21;13(15):3369-3376. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00284. Epub 2022 Apr 11.

Authors

Chenhui Liang¹, Yating Sha¹, Jingxian Huang¹, Chao Zhang², Shubin Su³, Hao Li³, Guohua Wang¹, Kaihui Liu⁴, Fei Wang⁵, Haomin Wang², Weidong Luo¹, Guorui Chen¹, Tianru Wu², Xiaoming Xie², Dong Qian^{1

6}, Haihua Tao^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240 Shanghai, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200050 Shanghai, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240 Shanghai, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China.
⁵ International Laboratory for Quantum Functional Materials of Henan, School of Physics and Microelectronics, Zhengzhou University, 450001 Zhengzhou, China.
⁶ Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240 Shanghai, China.

PMID: 35404049
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00284

Abstract

Modifying the wide band gap semiconductor hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) can bring new chances in photonics. By virtue of the solvothermal/hydrothermal oxidation or functionalization, hBN can be converted into fluorescent nanodots. Until now, it has been a big challenge to drily oxidize hBN and turn it into bright fluorescent structures due to its superior chemical stability. Here, we report the oxidation of multilayer hBN into fluorescent structures by ultraviolet (UV, λ = 172 nm) photodissociated directional oxygen radical [O(³P)] in a gradient magnetic field. The paramagnetic O(³P), produced in a low-pressure O₂ atmosphere, drifts toward hBN and then converts it into boron nitride oxide (BNO) micro/nanometer structures constituted by BO, BO₂, and O-doped hBN. For a properly oxidized BNO substance, bright and photostable wide-band photoluminescence is realized with nanosecond-scaled lifetimes under the excitation of UV and visible lights.