Md Nurul Huda: Epitaxial growth of lateral graphene-hexagonal boron nitride heterostructure

Md Nurul Huda, Robert Drost, Kaustuv Banerjee, Peter Liljeroth Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, P.O.Box 15100, 00076 Aalto, Finland .  With the growing family of two-dimensional (2D) materials, the combination of the semi-metal graphene, insulator hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides open new opportunities in understanding and controlling materials properties. The integration of graphene with h-BN in particular is considered as a promising way to engineer the electrical properties of graphene and realize novel concepts such as valleytronics and spintronics in 2D materials. Here, we  present the synthesis of graphene and h-BN lateral heterostructures by a sequential epitaxial growth method on nickel thin films and Ni(111) crystals. On Ni(111), the edges of the h-BN island acts as a seed for graphene growth and, atomically sharp graphene/h-BN interfaces can be achieved. For real device applications, the graphene/h-BN heterostructures need to be transferred onto insulating substrates. While electrochemical delamination method works for transferring graphene grown on Ni foils, it is difficult to transfer the G/h-BN heterostructures grown on Ni(111). This is , most likely, due to the strong interaction between the heterostructure and Ni(111). The interaction can be reduced by intercalating the heterostructure with different materials such as Br. Further work on the combination of the transfer techniques with our synthesis method followed by intercalation should make it possible to fabricate and transfer G/h-BN heterostructures onto insulating substrates.  I (Md Nurul Huda) have recently started my Ph.D. in Engineering Physics at Aalto University of school of science, Finland. I am primarily interested in electronic properties of 2D nanomaterials materials and its applications. Last year I received my M.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics from the same University. Before that I finished my B.Sc. in Physics back in the 2014 at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. At the beginning of my masters study, I was actively involved in two different research group in different research projects while I worked on carbon nanotube and graphene. I was awarded both of my masters and bachelor degree with honors.