We report on the chemically stabilized epitaxial w-BN thin film grown on c-plane sapphire by pulsed laser deposition under slow kinetic condition. Traces of no other allotropes such as cubic (c) or hexagonal (h) BN phases are present. Sapphire substrate plays a significant role in stabilizing the metastable w-BN from h-BN target under unusual PLD growth condition involving low temperature and pressure and is explained based on density functional theory calculation. The hardness and the elastic modulus of the w-BN film are 37 & 339 GPa, respectively measured by indentation along <0001> direction. The results are extremely promising in advancing the microelectronic and mechanical tooling industry.
@article{arxiv.1801.09329,
title = {Chemically stabilized epitaxial wurtzite-BN thin film},
author = {Badri Vishal and Rajendra Singh and Abhishek Chaturvedi and Ankit Sharma and M. B. Sreedhara and Rajib Sahu and Usha Bhat and Upadrasta Ramamurty and Ranjan Datta},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.09329},
year = {2018}
}