First-principles studies of graphene antidot lattices on monolayer h-BN substrate

Abstract

The structures and electronic structures of hetero bilayers composed of graphene antidot lattice (GAL) on monolayer h-BN substrate are studied in first-principles method. Bond lengths, interlayer distances, flatness, biaxial strain effects, and effects of translating the GAL layer are studied and analyzed in detail. Results show that introducing a monolayer BN substrate makes the zero-bandgap 5×5 GAL open a bandgap up to 28 meV, while it makes the semiconducting 6×6 GAL keep its low-energy electronic structure almost intact except a small bandgap change by tens of meV at most. Our studies demonstrate that h-BN is a promising substrate for GAL.