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Defective graphene domains in boron nitride sheets

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Abstract

Novel two-dimensional materials have emerged as hybrid structures that combine graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) domains. During their growth process, structural defects such as vacancies and change of atoms connectivity are unavoidable. In the present study, we use first-principle calculations to investigate the electronic structure of graphene domains endowed with a single carbon atom vacancy or Stone–Wales defects in h-BN sheets. The results show that both kinds of defects yield localized states within the bandgap. Alongside this change in the bandgap configuration, it occurs a splitting of the spin channels in such a way that electrons with up and down spins populate different energy levels above and below the Fermi level, respectively. Such a spin arrangement is associated to lattice magnetization. Stone–Wales defects solely point to the appearance of new intragap levels. These results demonstrated that vacancies could significantly affect the electronic properties of hybrid graphene/h-BN sheets.

A Boron-Nitride sheet doped with a vacancy endowed Carbon domain

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Brazilian Research Councils CNPq and CAPES. The authors also acknowledge the CENAPAD-SP for providing the computational facilities. L.A.R.J and G.M.S gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Brazilian Research Council FAPDF grants 0193.001.511/2017 and 0193.001766/2017, respectively. L.A.R.J also wishes to thank the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (Grant DIPLA 005/2016). L.A.R.J. and G.M.S. gratefully acknowledge, respectively, the financial support from CNPq grants 302236/2018-0 and 304637/2018-1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, University of Brasília, 70.919-970, Brasília, Brazil

    Ramiro Marcelo dos Santos, Geraldo Magela e Silva & Luiz Antonio Ribeiro Junior

  2. Federal Institute for Education, Science, and Technology Baiano, Senhor do Bonfim, Bahia, 48.970-000, Brazil

    Renato Batista Santos

  3. University of Brasília, PPG-CIMA, Campus Planaltina, 73345-010, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Bernahrd Georg Enders Neto

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  1. Ramiro Marcelo dos Santos
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Correspondence to Luiz Antonio Ribeiro Junior.

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dos Santos, R.M., Santos, R.B., Neto, B.G.E. et al. Defective graphene domains in boron nitride sheets. J Mol Model 25, 230 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00894-019-4093-5

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