Group III-nitrides, in particular, boron nitride, have attractive properties for both tribological coatings and electronic applications.[1,2] Boron nitride is being incorporated into thin-film technology through growth of metastable BN layers under non-equilibrium conditions. Recent work has shown that preferentially oriented cubic boron nitride (cBN) can be grown on Si using pulsed laser deposition.[3] Other phases of BN been prepared in bulk form under high applied pressure.
Near-edge x-ray-absorption fine-structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy offers a powerful means to study the electronic and bonding structure of solids, thin films, and adsorbates.[4] In particular, the elemental specificity of core-level, soft x-ray absorption can measure the characteristics of overlayers without interference from any substrate signal. Angle-dependent studies that take advantage of the near-linear intrinsic polarization of synchrotron radiation can elucidate p bond-orientation in these materials. Here we have used the core- level photoabsorption method to characterize the element-specific bonding in a thin-film of incoherent phase BN on Si (iBN).