Compositional Tuning of Electrical and Optical Properties of PLD-Generated Thin Films of 2D Borocarbonitrides (BN)_1–<i>x</i>(C)_<i>x</i>

Borocarbonitrides, (BN)1–x(C)x, provide a means of composition-tuning the bandgap of BN and graphene. (BN)1–x(C)x thin films of varied chemical compositions have been deposited on c-sapphire by pulsed laser deposition and characterized by spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Optical and electrical properties of these films show systematic changes in the band gap and the resistivity with composition. Thus, the optical band gap of the films shows a nearly linear dependence on the composition. The study throws light on the semiconducting nature of the (BN)1–x(C)x thin films with the films exhibiting Efros-Shklovskii (ES) variable range hopping in the low-temperature regime.