Atmospheric-pressure CVD-grown h-BN for the detector with deep ultraviolet response

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has a wide range of applications, especially as a protective coating, dielectric layer/substrate, transparent film, or deep ultraviolet detectors. High-quality h-BN thick films are indispensable for practical deep-ultraviolet (DUV) photodetector applications. However, the controlled synthesis of h-BN films in terms of thicknesses and crystallinity often requires high growth temperatures, low pressures, and catalytic transition metal substrates, which will ultimately hinder their applicability. In this work, we conducted a detailed study of h-BN films with thickness ranging from 50 nm to 160 nm directly synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on SiO 2 /Si substrate under atmospheric pressure. The synthesized h-BN is clean, uniform, and exhibits excellent optical and photoelectrical properties for ultraviolet light in the range of 210 nm-280 nm. This sensitive h-BN photodetector has a high repulsion rate (R 220nm /R 280nm > 10 2 and R 220nm / R 290nm > 10 3 ), a large detection rate (2.8 × 10 10 Jones). This work presented here demonstrates the great potential of this h-BN thick film for the development of DUV photodetectors.