For Hollywood celebrities, the term “splitsville” usually means
“check your prenup.” For scientists wanting to mass-produce high quality
nanoribbons from boron nitride nanotubes, “splitsville” could mean
“happily ever after.”
Splitting
of a boron nitride nanotube to form a boron nitride nanoribbon shows
atoms of boron in blue, nitrogen in yellow and potassium in pink.
Pressure from potassium intercalation unzips the BNNT and forms layers
of BNNRs.
Scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley
Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, working with
scientists at Rice University, have developed a technique in which
boron nitride nanotubes are stuffed with atoms of potassium until the
tubes split open along a longitudinal seam. This creates defect-free
boron nitride nanoribbons of uniform lengths and thickness. Boron
nitride nanoribbons are projected to display a variety of intriguing
magnetic and electronic properties that hold enormous potential for
future devices.
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