Band gap opening and engineering is one of the high priority goals in the development of graphene electronics. Here, we report on the opening and scaling of band gap in BN doped graphene (BNG) films grown by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition method. High resolution transmission electron microscopy is employed to resolve the graphene and h-BN domain formation in great detail. X-ray photoelectron, micro-Raman, and UV-vis spectroscopy studies revealed a distinct structural and phase evolution in BNG films at low BN concentration. Synchrotron radiation based XAS-XES measurements concluded a gap opening in BNG films, which is also confirmed by field effect transistor measurements. For the first time, a significant band gap as high as 600 meV is observed for low BN concentrations and is attributed to the opening of the π-π* band gap of graphene due to isoelectronic BN doping. As-grown films exhibit structural evolution from homogeneously dispersed small BN clusters to large sized BN domains with embedded diminutive graphene domains. The evolution is described in terms of competitive growth among h-BN and graphene domains with increasing BN concentration. The present results pave way for the development of band gap engineered BN doped graphene-based devices.

No abstract

Electronic structures of graphene oxide (GO) and hydro-thermally reduced graphene oxides (rGOs) processed at low temperatures (120–180°C) were studied using X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES), X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). C K-edge XANES spectra of rGOs reveal that thermal reduction restores C = C sp2 bonds and removes some of the oxygen and hydroxyl groups of GO, which initiates the evolution of carbonaceous species. The combination of C K-edge XANES and Kα XES spectra shows that the overlapping π and π* orbitals in rGOs and GO are similar to that of highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG), which has no band-gap. C Kα RIXS spectra provide evidence that thermal reduction changes the density of states (DOSs) that is generated in the π-region and/or in the gap between the π and π* levels of the GO and rGOs. Two-dimensional C Kα RIXS mapping of the heavy reduction of rGOs further confirms that the residual oxygen and/or oxygen-containing functional groups modify the π and σ features, which are dispersed by the photon excitation energy. The dispersion behavior near the K point is approximately linear and differs from the parabolic-like dispersion observed in HOPG.

Angle-dependent x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and scanning photoelectron microscopy measurements were performed to differentiate local electronic structures at the tips and sidewalls of highly aligned ZnO nanorods. The overall intensity of the O K-edge XANES spectra is greatly enhanced for small photon incident angles. In contrast, the overall intensity of the Zn K-edge XANES is much less sensitive to the photon incident angle. Both valence-band photoemission and O K-edge XANES spectra show substantial enhancement of O 2p derived states near the valence band maximum and conduction band minimum, respectively. The spatially resolved Zn 3d core level spectra from tip and sidewall regions show the lack of chemical shift. All the results consistently suggest that the tip surfaces of the highly aligned ZnO nanorods are terminated by O ions and the nanorods are oriented in the [0001̄] direction.

This study measures the x-ray-absorption spectra of a series of nanodiamond thin films with grain diameters ranging from 3.5 nm to 5 mm at the C K-edge using the sample drain current mode at room temperature. Resonance peaks resembling the C 1s core exciton are observed. The exciton state and conduction band edge are found to shift to higher energies with the decrease of the grain size indicative of the presence of the quantum confinement effect. [S0031-9007(99)