Tian Bo, Li Junzhu, Wang Qingxiao, Samad Abdus, Yuan Yue, Hedhili Mohamed Nejib, Jangir Arun, Gruenewald Marco, Lanza Mario, Schwingenschlögl Udo, Fritz Torsten, Zhang Xixiang, Liu Zheng
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
Physical Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Nat Commun. 2024 Nov 2;15(1):9488. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53573-y.
Ultraflat metal foils are essential for semiconductor nanoelectronics applications and nanomaterial epitaxial growth. Numerous efforts have been devoted to metal surface engineering studies in the past decades. However, various challenges persist, including size limitations, polishing non-uniformities, and undesired contaminants. Thus, further exploration of advanced metal surface treatment techniques is essential. Here, we report a physical strategy that utilizes surface acoustic wave assisted annealing to flatten metal foils by eliminating the surface steps, eventually transforming commercial rough metal foils into ultraflat substrates. Large-area, high-quality, smooth 2D materials, including graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), were successfully grown on the resulting flat metal substrates. Further investigation into the oxidation of 2D-material-coated metal foils, both rough and flat, revealed that the hBN-coated flat metal foil exhibits enhanced anti-corrosion properties. Molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory validate our experimental observations.
超平金属箔对于半导体纳米电子应用和纳米材料外延生长至关重要。在过去几十年里，人们在金属表面工程研究方面付出了诸多努力。然而，各种挑战依然存在，包括尺寸限制、抛光不均匀以及不需要的污染物。因此，进一步探索先进的金属表面处理技术至关重要。在此，我们报告一种物理策略，该策略利用表面声波辅助退火通过消除表面台阶来使金属箔变平，最终将商用粗糙金属箔转变为超平基板。包括石墨烯和六方氮化硼（hBN）在内的大面积、高质量、光滑的二维材料成功生长在所得的平整金属基板上。对粗糙和平整的二维材料涂层金属箔的氧化进一步研究表明，hBN涂层的平整金属箔具有增强的抗腐蚀性能。分子动力学模拟和密度泛函理论验证了我们的实验观察结果。
