A facile chemical exfoliation method to obtain large size boron nitride nanosheets

Owning many peculiar properties, hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) have lots of potential applications, such as electronic devices and deep ultraviolet emitters. In this article, a chemical exfoliation method to prepare few-layer and large size BNNSs is reported. Through related instrument characterizations, we demonstrated that this preparation method can allow the exfoliation of BNNSs from bulk BN powder successfully. From CL spectra, the as-prepared BNNSs were proved to show stronger CL emission ability than BN powder. Based on the experiment results analysis, we proposed an exfoliation mechanism and verified it through in situ SEM detection.