NEXAFS spectra of an epitaxial boron nitride film on Ni(111)

Shimoyama, Iwao   ; Baba, Yuji  ; Sekiguchi, Tetsuhiro  ; Nath, K. G.

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) thin film has been epitaxially formed on Ni(111) by chemical vapor deposition using borazine gas. The electronic structure of this system is studied by near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The thickness of the h-BN is estimated to be about two-layers from XPS. B K-edge NEXAFS spectra show new * peak which is not observed in the spectrum for bulk h-BN. From a polarization dependence analysis of NEXAFS, we propose this new * peak originates from the interaction between the h-BN and Ni(111). This new * peak clearly proves that conduction band of h-BN/Ni(111) is different from that of bulk h-BN.