Photoelectric and Magnetic Properties of Boron Nitride Nanosheets with Turbostratic Structure and Oxygen Doping

Turbostratic and oxygen doping (3.7 atom % ) hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (TO-BNNSs) with abundant defect sites, were synthesized by pyrolyzing the mixture of melamine cyanurate and boric acid. Systematic analyses reveal a highly disordered structures and covalent oxygen-doping in the TO-BNNSs. These features endow the product with increased unpaired electrons, localized charge asymmetry and spin polarization. While compared with bulk h-BN, the optical bandgap of TO-BNNSs drop down to ~5.2 from ~5.7 eV, dielectric constant raised from ~2.1 to ~2.4, the saturation magnetic moment increased from ~0.011 to ~0.033 emu/g, and the coercivity enlarged from ~73.56 to ~367.39 Oe. These results suggest that h-BN materials with turbostratic structure and heteroatom-doping have extensive application prospect in the fields of nanoscale optics, electronics and magnetics.