Growth of two-dimensional materials on non-catalytic substrates: h-BN/Au(111)

The growth of two-dimensional (2D) materials is a topic of very high scientific and technological interest. While chemical vapour deposition on catalytic metals has become a well developed approach for the growth of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (BN), very few alternative approaches for synthesis on non-reactive supports have been explored so far. Here we report the growth of BN on gold, using magnetron sputtering of B in N-2/Ar atmosphere, a scalable method using only non-toxic reagents. Scanning tunnelling microscopy at low coverage shows primarily triangular monolayer BN islands exhibiting two 'magic' orientations on the Au(111) surface. Such rotational alignment of BN on Au (111) is surprising, given the expected weak binding and the high lattice mismatch (similar to 14%) between BN and Au. Our observations are consistent with a strong coupling between the edges of BN flakes and the substrate, which leads to the selection of BN orientations that maximize the orbital overlap between edge atoms and Au surface atoms. Diverse flake morphologies resembling the shape of butterflies, six-apex stars and diamonds, implying alternating B- and N-terminated edges, are observed as well. Our results provide insight into the growth mechanisms of 2D materials on weakly interacting and chemically inert substrates, and provide the basis for integrating other 2D materials with atomically precise graphene nanostructures synthesized from molecular precursors on Au.