Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has long been recognized as an ideal substrate for electronic devices due to its dangling-bond-free surface, insulating nature and thermal/chemical stability. Therefore, to analyse the lattice structure and orientation of h-BN crystals becomes important. Here, the stacking order and wrinkles of h-BN are investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It is experimentally confirmed that the layers in the h-BN flakes are arranged in the AA' stacking. The wrinkles in a form of threefold network throughout the h-BN crystal are oriented along the armchair direction, and their formation mechanism was further explored by molecular dynamics simulations. Our findings provide a deep insight about the microstructure of h-BN and shed light on the structural design/electronic modulations of two-dimensional crystals.
@article{arxiv.2102.10316,
title = {Direct observation of layer-stacking and oriented wrinkles in multilayer hexagonal boron nitride},
author = {Lingxiu Chen and Kenan Elibol and Haifang Cai and Chengxin Jiang and Wenhao Shi and Chen Chen and Hui Shan Wang and Xiujun Wang and Xiaojing Mu and Chen Li and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Yufeng Guo and Jannik C. Meyer and Haomin Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.10316},
year = {2021}
}