Facile Production of Hexagonal Boron Nitride Nanoparticles by Cryogenic Exfoliation

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b01913
• Publication Date: 2019-07-02T15:05:38Z
• Authors: Ngoc My Hanh Duong; Evgenii Glushkov; Andrey Chernev; Vytautas Navikas; Jean Comtet; Minh Anh Phan Nguyen; Milos Toth; Aleksandra Radenovic; Toan Trong Tran; Igor Aharonovich
• Keywords: Hexagonal boron nitride; Exfoliation joint

Fluorescent nanoparticles with optically robust luminescence are imperative to applications in imaging and labeling. Here we demonstrate that hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) can be reliably produced using a scalable cryogenic exfoliation technique sizes below 10 nm. The particles exhibit bright fluorescence generated by color centers act as atomic-size quantum emitters. We analyze their optical properties, including emission wavelength, photon-statistics, photodynamics, show they suitable for far-field super-resolution nanoscopy. Our results provide foundation exploration of hBN candidates bioimaging, labeling, well biomarkers sensing.