Electronic and Atomic Structure of Metastable Phases of Boron Nitride using Core-Level Photoabsorption

A. Chaiken, L.J. Terminello, and J. Wong
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550

G.L. Doll
GM Research and Development Laboratory, Warren, MI 48090

Published as Appl. Phys. Lett. 63, 2112 (1993).

Soft x-ray core-level photoabsorption has been measured from three forms of boron nitride, namely the hexagonal (hBN), cubic (cBN), and incoherent (iBN) phases. The B 1s and N 1s photoabsorption spectra of the hBN sample show evidence of both s*- and p* -empty states, indicative of sp² bonding, while the cBN absorption spectra exhibits only sp³ bonding in absorption features characteristic of the zincblende structure. The incoherent phase of BN in the form of a thin film on a Si substrate possesses s* and p* states similar to hBN. The B 1s p* absorption features of the iBN film show an angular dependence which suggests that the microstructure consists of hexagonal-phase layer planes oriented normal to the BN/Si interface.

• Introduction
• Experimental Details
• Results
• Discussion
• References
• Figures