Band gap and chemically ordered domain structure of a graphene analogue

Chemically synthesized few layer graphene analogues of BxCyNz are characterized by aberration corrected transmission electron microscopy and high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS) to determine the local phase, electronic structure and band gap. HREELS band gap studies of a BxCyNz composition reveal absorption edges at 2.08, 3.43 and 6.01 eV, indicating that the BxCyNz structure may consist of domains of different compositions. The K -absorption edge energy position of the individual elements in BxCyNz is determined and compared with h-BN and graphite. An understanding of these experimental findings is developed with complementary first-principles based calculations of the various ordered configurations of BxCyNz.