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Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has been of great interest due to its ability to host several bright quantum emitters at room temperature. However, the identification of the observed emitters remains challenging due to spectral variability, as well as the lack of atomic defect structure information. In this work, we demonstrate the site-selective creation of blue emitters in exfoliated hBN flakes with high-energy ion irradiation. With the correlation analysis of cryogenic and temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, we observe two zero phonon lines (ZPLs) at ∼432.8 and 454.3 nm. Photoluminescence excitation (PLE) measurements further confirm the emission origins of the two prominent lines. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) reveals that the dominant defect structures present in ion-irradiated samples are vacancy-type (Vx) and adatom(intercalant)-type (Ax). Together with first-principles GW-BSE (Bethe–Salpeter equation) calculations, we deduce that the observed blue emissions are likely related to boron intercalants (Bint). Our results not only discover a group of blue emissions in hBN but also provide insights into the physical origin of the emissions with local atomic structures in hBN.

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  This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Article that appeared in final form in ACS Nano, copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society. To access the final published article, see https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c03423.

Keyword: Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), Quantum emitters, Photoluminescence spectroscopy

Date published: 2025-04-22

Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)

Journal:

• ACS Nano (ISSN: 1936086X) vol. 19 issue. 15 p. 15130-15138

Funding:

• Ministry of Education - Singapore EDUN C3318279V12
• Ministry of Education - Singapore MOE2018-T3-1-005
• Ministry of Education - Singapore MOE-T2EP50122-0012
• Ministry of Education - Singapore MOE-T2EP50221-0009
• Air Force Office of Scientific Research
• National Research Foundation Singapore
• Office of Naval Research FA8655-21-1-7026

Manuscript type: Author's version (Accepted manuscript)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c03423

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Updated at: 2026-07-06 09:04:14 +0900

Published on MDR: 2026-07-06 10:29:08 +0900