Ultraflat Cu(111) foils by surface acoustic wave-assisted annealing

• Main Authors: Tian, Bo, Li, Junzhu, Wang, Qingxiao, Samad, Abdus, Yuan, Yue, Hedhili, Mohamed Nejib, Jangir, Arun, Gruenewald, Marco, Lanza, Mario, Schwingenschlögl, Udo, Fritz, Torsten, Zhang, Xixiang, Liu, Zheng
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science and Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2025
• Subjects: Engineering; Acoustic wave; Annealing
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/182075
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Ultraflat metal foils are essential for semiconductor nanoelectronics applications and nanomaterial epitaxial growth. Numerous efforts have been devoted to metal surface engineering studies in the past decades. However, various challenges persist, including size limitations, polishing non-uniformities, and undesired contaminants. Thus, further exploration of advanced metal surface treatment techniques is essential. Here, we report a physical strategy that utilizes surface acoustic wave assisted annealing to flatten metal foils by eliminating the surface steps, eventually transforming commercial rough metal foils into ultraflat substrates. Large-area, high-quality, smooth 2D materials, including graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), were successfully grown on the resulting flat metal substrates. Further investigation into the oxidation of 2D-material-coated metal foils, both rough and flat, revealed that the hBN-coated flat metal foil exhibits enhanced anti-corrosion properties. Molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory validate our experimental observations.