Migration-enhanced epitaxy of cubic BN: An ab initio study

Migration-enhanced epitaxy (MEE) is shown to be promising as a nonenergetic epitaxial growth method of cubic BN (cBN) for the first time, by examining the deposition of N (B) atoms on the B (N) surface of cBN(001) with ab initia calculation. We find that MEE has the potential for realizing the layer-by-layer epitaxial growth of cBN on cBN(001), owing to the epitaxial nature of monolayer deposition, the saturation of N adsorption at monolayer coverage, the high mobility of a B adatom on a B island which favors the. formation of a flat B surface, and the B-N exchange reaction which repairs the defects created by the excess N (B) adatoms on the N (B) surface.