Boron Nitride: from advanced growth approaches to advanced applications

We propose a workshop dedicated to BN. Recently, the size of our community has been booming, and BN has become a material of choice for advanced applications. Time has come to organize this workshop with the EMRS society, the appropriate forum for scientific discussions concerning emerging materials.

Scope:

Boron nitride, in its various polymorphs (principally hexagonal boron nitride, hBN, and cubic boron nitride, cBN), is of growing interest due to its potential applications in electronics, optoelectronics, nanophotonics, and quantum devices. Current active research areas include BN synthesis, characterization, device fabrication, and performance.
Born in 1842 in the laboratory of British chemist Balmain, the emergence of the modern era of BN began in 2004 when laser action at 225 nm by cathodoluminescence excitation on millimeter-sized hBN crystal was demonstrated. This sample was a by-product of high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) cBN growth. As a surprisingly efficient UV emitter and perfect wide band gap passivation layer in 2D semiconductor heterostructures, hBN single crystals suitable for measurements became highly needed. Therefore the HPHT approach and the new atmospheric pressure high temperature (APHT) method have been developed resulting in extremely high-quality material available for researchers.
Fascinating and unexpected physical properties are encoded in the simple crystal of hBN leading to its potential highly advanced new applications, e.g. in graphene and van der Waals 2D semiconductor-based devices. Therefore many researchers have focused on the growth of large-scale coherent BN films on foreign substrates, and the field is currently booming.
Thanks to our own experiences, and our tradition of collaborating we propose to gather all the branches of the science of BN here in Warsaw under the umbrella of the EMRS at the occasion of its 2024 fall meeting. Based on the experience the EMRS has with the launching of symposia dedicated to GaN, we warmly hope that the proposal can be accepted and can become the first event of a future fertile series.

Hot topics to be covered by the symposium:

• Growth of hBN and cBN bulk crystals and thin layers
• Metastable polytypes such as Bernal BN, rhombohedral BN, and wurtzite BN
• Twisted hBN and Moiré superlattices
• Optical properties: color centers, single photon and UV emitters, birefringence, Kerr effect, etc.
• Effects of boron and nitrogen isotopes on optical and spin properties
• Structural defects in BN crystal – folds, wrinkles, and stacking faults in hBN
• Controlling the properties by point defects and impurities
• BN-based applications in electronics, optoelectronics, nanophotonics, quantum devices, etc.
• Any breakthrough not unidentified at the time of writing will be warmly welcome.

List of invited speakers:

• D. Akinwande, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univ. Texas, Austin, USA: BN membranes for fuel cells
• J. Bradford, School of Physics & Astronomy, Univ. Nottingham, UK: AFM studies of HT MBE hBN
• G. Cassabois, Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France: What is the nature of the UV color center emitting at 300 nm in hexagonal boron nitride ?
• S. Chichibu, Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku Univ. Japan: Cathodoluminescence studies of mBN and hBN polytypes
• A. Gali, Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Wigner Inst. Budapest, Hungary: Theory of defect emitters in hexagonal boron nitride
• K. Hirama, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Kanagawa, Japan: MBE of cubic BN on diamond
• Y.J. Hong, Dept. of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul, Korea: Micro-LEDs on hBN-coated sapphire substrates or remote epitaxy with hBN
• Y.D. Kim, Department of Physics, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea: Electroluminescence of 4.1 eV from carbon color centers in hBN
• J.K. Kim, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Postech, Pohang, Korea: Growth of hexagonal boron nitrides by MOCVD and their applications
• K.P. Korona, Faculty of Physics, Univ. Warsaw: Influence of stacking order on UV luminescence of epitaxial BN
• T. Korona, Faculty of Chemistry, Univ. Warsaw, Poland: Influence of additional layers on properties of point defects in hexagonal boron nitride - a theoretical study
• K. Koski, Department of Chemistry, UC Davis, USA: Chemically Tunable Elastic Properties of Hexagonal Boron Nitride using Zero-Valent Metal Intercalation
• J. Lin, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas Tech University, USA: The development of h-BN quasi-bulk crystals
• S.G Louie, Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, California, USA: Excitons in linear and nonlinear optical responses of monolayer hBN
• N. Melchioni, Centre for Nano Science and Technology, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Milan, Italy: Selective generation of luminescent defects in hBN
• F. Paleari, CNR-NANO, Modena, Italy: Exciton-Phonon Coupling in hBN: insights from theoretical spectroscopy
• S. Pimputkar, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, USA: BN crystal growth from ammonothermal solutions
• M. Royo, Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona, Spain: Flexoelectricity in two-dimensional materials from first principles
• H.S. Shin,Institute for Basic Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea: Current status and challenges in hBN growth by CVD
• S. Sundaram, Georgia Tech, Metz, France: MOVPE growth of hBN - scaling up and applications
• T. Taniguchi, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, NIMS, Tsukuba, Japan: Solution growth of BN crystals and their residual impurity and isotope control
• F. Tuomisto, Department of Physics and Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland: Current state of BN research using positron annihilation spectroscopy
• C.G. Van de Walle, Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA: Doping of hexagonal and cubic BN
• N. Wan, Collaborative Innovation Center for Micro/Nano Fabrication Device and System, Southeast Univ. Nanjing China: Growth of BN single crystals with unidirectional stacking
• L. Wang, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China: Controlled Growth of Single-crystal Boron Nitride Based on Symmetry
• A. Zobelli, Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Univ. Paris Saclay, France: Electronic structure of hBN under Stacking, Folding, and Twisting Deformations
• E. Zoghlin, John Hopkins University, USA: Application of the traveling-solvent floating-zone technique to bulk h-BN growth

List of scientific committee members:

• Michal Bockowski, UNIPRESS PAN, Warsaw, Poland
• Giorgia Fugallo, CNRS, INSP, Paris, France
• Michael Heuken, Aixtron Gmbh, Aachen, Germany
• Sergei Novikov, Nottingham University, the UK
• Abdallah Ougazzaden, GeorgiaTech Europe, Metz, France
• Andrzej Wysmolek, Warsaw University, Poland
• Luis Fernando Zagonel, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brasil
• Nikolai Zhigadlo, CrystMat & University of Zürich, Switzerland