Nanostructured boron nitride (BN) is a technologically important material thanks to its excellent mechanical and thermal properties. It could be ideal for use in a variety of electronics and optoelectronics applications and as a good support material for graphene devices because the two materials have very similar lattice constants. However, BN is notoriously difficult to functionalize because it is chemically inert and hydrophobic. A new and simple one-step plasma-assisted technique to add hydroxyl groups to the material, developed by researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan, may now help overcome this problem….
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/58974