SYNTHESIS OF NANOPARTICLES AND NANOTUBES WITH WELL-SEPARATED LAYERS OF BORON-NITRIDE AND CARBON

Polyhedral and tubular graphitic nanoparticles made of carbon layers a nd boron nitride (BN) layers have been synthesized. These particles we re observed in the soot collected on the anode deposit formed by arcin g a hafnium diboride rod with graphite in a nitrogen atmosphere. Eleme ntal profiles with subnanometer-scale resolution revealed a strong pha se separation between BN layers and carbon layers along the radial dir ection. Most of these tubes have a sandwich structure with carbon laye rs both in the center and at the periphery, separated by a few BN laye rs. This structure provides insight into the atomistic mechanism of na notube growth in the boron-carbon-nitrogen ternary system and may lead to the creation of nanostructured electronic devices relying on the c ontrolled production of heteroatomic nanotubes.