Mechanical properties of atomically thin boron nitride and the role of interlayer interactions

Falin, Aleksey; Cai, Qiran; Santos, Elton J. G.; Scullion, Declan; Qian, Dong; Zhang, Rui; Yang, Zhi; Huang, Shaoming; Watanabe, Kenji; Taniguchi, Takashi; Barnett, Matthew; Chen, Ying; Ruoff, Rodney S.; Li, Lu Hua

doi:10.1038/ncomms15815

articleNature CommunicationsJun 22, 2017GOLD OA

Mechanical properties of atomically thin boron nitride and the role of interlayer interactions

AFAleksey Falin QCQiran Cai EJElton J. G. Santos DSDeclan Scullion DQDong Qian

Deakin University · Queen's University Belfast · +6 more institutions

PubMed

Indexed inarxivcrossrefdoajpubmed

Abstract

Atomically thin boron nitride (BN) nanosheets are important two-dimensional nanomaterials with many unique properties distinct from those of graphene, but investigation into their mechanical properties remains incomplete. Here we report that high-quality single-crystalline mono- and few-layer BN nanosheets are one of the strongest electrically insulating materials. More intriguingly, few-layer BN shows mechanical behaviours quite different from those of few-layer graphene under indentation. In striking contrast to graphene, whose strength decreases by more than 30% when the number of layers increases from 1 to 8, the mechanical strength of BN nanosheets is not sensitive to increasing thickness. We attribute…

Citation impact

917

total citations

FWCI: 26.22
Percentile: 100%
References: 87

Citations per year

Authors

14

Topics & keywords

Topics

Keywords

Graphene
Boron nitride
Materials science
Indentation
Layer (electronics)
Nanomaterials
Mechanical strength
Composite material

No related works found for this paper.