Photoelectric and magnetic properties of boron nitride nanosheets with turbostratic structure and oxygen doping

Turbostratic and oxygen doping (3.7 atom %) hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (TO-BNNSs) with abundant defect sites, were synthesized by pyrolyzing the mixture of melamine cyanurate and boric acid. Systematic analyses reveal a highly disordered structures and covalent oxygen-doping in the TO-BNNSs. These features endow the product with increased unpaired electrons, localized charge asymmetry and spin polarization. While compared with bulk h-BN, the optical bandgap of TO-BNNSs drop down to ∼5.2 from ∼5.7 eV, dielectric constant raised from ∼2.1 to ∼2.4, the saturation magnetic moment increased from ∼0.011 to ∼0.033 emu g−1, and the coercivity enlarged from ∼73.56 to ∼367.39 Oe. These results suggest that h-BN materials with turbostratic structure and heteroatom-doping have extensive application prospect in the fields of nanoscale optics, electronics and magnetics.