%0 Electronic Article
%A Lin, You-Ron
%A Franke, Markus
%A Parhizkar, Shayan
%A Raths, Miriam
%A Yu, Victor Wen-zhe
%A Lee, Tien-Lin
%A Soubatch, Serguei
%A Blum, Volker
%A Tautz, F. Stefan
%A Kumpf, Christian
%A Bocquet, François C.
%T Boron nitride on SiC(0001)
%I arXiv
%M FZJ-2025-02319
%D 2022
%X In the field of van der Waals heterostructures, the twist angle between stacked two-dimensional (2D) layers has been identified to be of utmost importance for the properties of the heterostructures. In this context, we previously reported the growth of a single layer of unconventionally oriented epitaxial graphene that forms in a surfactant atmosphere [F. C. Bocquet, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 106102 (2020)]. The resulting G-R0$^\circ$ layer is aligned with the SiC lattice, and hence represents an important milestone towards high quality twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG), a frequently investigated model system in this field. Here, we focus on the surface structures obtained in the same surfactant atmosphere, but at lower preparation temperatures at which a boron nitride template layer forms on SiC(0001). In a comprehensive study based on complementary experimental and theoretical techniques, we find -- in contrast to the literature -- that this template layer is a hexagonal B$_x$N$_y$ layer, but not high-quality hBN. It is aligned with the SiC lattice and gradually replaced by low-quality graphene in the 0$^\circ$ orientation of the B$_x$N$_y$ template layer upon annealing.
%K Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) (Other)
%K FOS: Physical sciences (Other)
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)25
%9 Preprint
%R 10.48550/ARXIV.2203.00985
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1041580