Real-time oxide evolution of copper protected by graphene and boron nitride barriers

M Galbiati,P Bøggild,D M A Mackenzie,A C Stoot,L Camilli

doi:10.1038/srep39770

Abstract

Applying protective or barrier layers to isolate a target item from the environment is a common approach to prevent or delay its degradation. The impermeability of two-dimensional materials such as graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has generated a great deal of interest in corrosion and material science. Owing to their different electronic properties (graphene is a semimetal, whereas hBN is a wide-bandgap insulator), their protection behaviour is distinctly different. Here we investigate the performance of graphene and hBN as barrier coatings applied on copper substrates through a real-time study in two different oxidative conditions. Our findings show that the evolution of the copper oxidation is remarkably different for the two coating materials.

Highlights

Applying protective or barrier layers to isolate a target item from the environment is a common approach to prevent or delay its degradation
While copper is used in many applications, including electronics, the main motivation for basing this study on copper films is the support of high quality, single-layer growth of continuous sheets of both graphene and Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), which allows for a direct comparison of their barrier properties
In analogy with some previous reports[23], CuO is instead formed later, after 16 minutes from the beginning of the experiment, which corresponds to a temperature of 150 °C (Fig. 1a)

Summary

Introduction

Applying protective or barrier layers to isolate a target item from the environment is a common approach to prevent or delay its degradation. The impermeability of two-dimensional materials such as graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has generated a great deal of interest in corrosion and material science. Owing to their different electronic properties (graphene is a semimetal, whereas hBN is a wide-bandgap insulator), their protection behaviour is distinctly different. We investigate the performance of graphene and hBN as barrier coatings applied on copper substrates through a real-time study in two different oxidative conditions. While copper is used in many applications, including electronics, the main motivation for basing this study on copper films is the support of high quality, single-layer growth of continuous sheets of both graphene and hBN, which allows for a direct comparison of their barrier properties

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion