Precursors controlled morphologies of nanocrystalline h-BN and its growth mechanism

Abstract Nanocrystalline h-BN (hexagonal boron nitride) with various morphologies have been developed via wet chemical synthesis method. Highly reactive environment (NH3) at 1500 °C with different precursor batches (boric acid-melamine), (boric acid-ammonium chloride) and (boric acid-ammonium chloride-melamine) is responsible for these hierarchical growth of h-BN nanosheets, nanowhiskers and cauliflowers respectively. The precursors batches controlled the morphologies of h-BN nanostructures from nanosheets-like to nanowhiskers and cauliflowers-like. The h-BN nanostructures were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), FESEM-TEM, HRTEM, XPS and EDX. The size and shape of h-BN nanostructures were investigated as function of used precursors. The possible formation mechanism was discussed in detail. This approach used in this work is expected to be a very useable for controlling the diverse shapes of crystalline materials for various application, like sensors, high temperatures, mechanical and optical industrial usage.