Planar BN-Doped Nanographenes on Reactive Metal Surfaces: A Promising Pathway for the Preparation of BN-Doped Graphene Layers

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Boron nitride (BN)-substituted nanographene molecules are currently the focus of interest because the substitution of C–C units by isoelectronic and isosteric BN units is a straightforward way for tuning of their electronic properties. We investigated interface properties of BN-doped B 3 N 3 -hexa- peri -hexabenzocoronene (BN-HBC) and B 3 N 3 -hexabenzotriphenylene (BN-HBP) on metals with different reactivities using photoelectron spectroscopy (PES). As a reference, HBC was studied on Au(111), Cu(111), and Ni(111) by PES and scanning tunneling microscopy. The substitution of the inner benzene ring of HBC by a borazine core changes the nature of the interaction in the case of more reactive Cu(111) and Ni(111) substrates. Whereas for the planar BN-HBC, chemical interaction occurs mainly via outer C atoms, the inner BN ring is affected in the case of the nonplanar BN-HBP. The stability of the inner ring is expected to be a prerequisite for a successful preparation of well-defined, large-area, BN-doped graphene layers from bottom-up synthesis.