| Manufacturing 100 cm² 2D Single-Crystal Boron Nitride
| Successfully Elucidating the Mechanism of 2D Single-Crystal Synthesis
| Wide Opening of Rollable Display Commercialization

The Feng Ding Group Leader team (UNIST Distinguished Professor) at the Institute for Basic Science's Multidimensional Carbon Materials Research Unit announced on the 23rd that it has developed key technology for commercializing low-power, high-performance rollable displays that roll up like newspapers, in collaboration with research teams from China and Switzerland.

The research team has successfully manufactured single-crystal 2D white graphene at a large area of up to 100 cm², overcoming the previous limitation of manufacturing at only several square millimeters. This is a size that can be directly applied to semiconductor manufacturing processes.

2D white graphene (h-BN) is a 2D material with a thickness of 1-2 atomic layers in which boron (B) and nitrogen (N) atoms are arranged in a triangular form. Unlike graphene, it possesses insulating properties and can be applied as a 2D insulator.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute for Basic Science announced that the research results were published online in Nature (IF 41.577), the world's most prestigious academic journal, at 2 a.m. Korea time on May 23.

For the commercialization of rollable displays, thin and flexible 2D materials (1-2 atomic layers in thickness) are needed instead of rigid silicon, and when single crystals are used, device performance is also significantly enhanced.

Until now, apart from graphene, there have been no cases of manufacturing other 2D single-crystal materials at large areas suitable for commercialization.

Through simulation research, the research team discovered a synthesis formula showing that by using substrates with lower surface symmetry (symmetry being the number of identical shapes obtained when rotated 36 degrees) than the material to be synthesized, various 2D single-crystal materials can be grown at large areas.

Graphene, which has a hexagonal structure, is a material with 6-fold rotational symmetry showing the same shape every 6 degrees of rotation, while h-BN, which has a triangular structure, is a material with 3-fold rotational symmetry showing the same shape every 12 degrees

Based on this principle, the research team successfully manufactured 2D single-crystal white graphene insulator at a large area of 10 cm × 10 cm using a copper substrate with low surface symmetry.

Graphene alone, being a conductor, cannot implement semiconductors that turn on and off. However, by stacking conductor graphene and insulator white graphene layer by layer, it is possible to create thin, flexible next-generation high-performance, low-power semiconductors with only a few atomic layers in thickness without additional processing steps.

This research has opened a path to apply superior 2D materials, which were difficult to commercialize due to limitations in large-area manufacturing technology, to industrial applications.

White graphene is resistant to heat and can block radiation, and can be widely utilized not only in electronic devices but also in fields requiring light weight and thermal/chemical stability such as aircraft and spacecraft.

Feng Ding, Group Leader of the Institute for Basic Science, stated, "2D materials are excellent in themselves, but when multiple materials are stacked layer by layer and used together, they create synergistic effects. We have opened the door to the next-generation semiconductor market beyond silicon, and will contribute to implementing new material properties in electronic devices that we have never imagined before."