Recent advances in hybrid graphene‐BN planar structures

Abstract

Among the hotly investigated two‐dimensional (2D) materials, the hybrid graphene‐BN sheet is of special interest in the single‐atomic sheet family. Since graphene and BN sheet are the two most widely studied 2D materials, and they have the least lattice mismatch with each other while exhibiting very distinctive properties. Therefore, the hybridization between them provides unique flexibilities in tuning the properties which can change from nonmagnetic to ferromagnetic and from semiconducting to half‐metallic. The most impressive trait is that different from the functionalized graphene and BN sheet by hydrogenation, fluorination, or metal doping for the band engineering, the hybrid graphene‐BN sheet with similar properties remains single‐atomic. The combinations of different patterns with different sizes make the hybrid sheet rich in functionalities going beyond other 2D materials. In this overview, we briefly summarize the recent advances in hybrid graphene‐BN sheet, focusing on the modulations of physical and chemical properties by changing the hybrid configurations. Future research directions in this field are also discussed. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2016, 6:65–82. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1237This article is categorized under: Structure and Mechanism > Computational Materials Science