Synthesis of Borophene Nanoribbons on Ag(110) Surface

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful synthesis of high-quality borophene nanoribbons on Ag(110) surfaces, characterized by STM and supported by DFT calculations, expanding boron's low-dimensional forms and potential applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for synthesizing borophene nanoribbons with controlled structure and provides detailed atomic-level characterization and theoretical insights.

Findings

BNRs are along the [-110] direction of Ag(110)

Ribbons have a narrow width distribution around 10.3 nm

Four ordered surface structures identified and modeled by DFT

Abstract

We present the successful synthesis of single-atom-thick borophene nanoribbons (BNRs) by self-assembly of boron on Ag(110) surface. The scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) studies reveal high quality BNRs: all the ribbons are along the [-110] direction of Ag(110), and can run across the steps on the surface. The width of ribbons is distributed in a narrow range around 10.3 nm. High resolution STM images revealed four ordered surface structures in BNRs. Combined with DFT calculations, we found that all the four structures of boron nanoribbons consist of the boron chains with different width, separated by hexagonal hole arrays. The successful synthesis of BNRs enriches the low dimensional allotrope of boron and may promote further applications of borophene