Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy in boron nitride nanotubes compared to microcrystalline h‐BN and c‐BN

Photoluminescence spectra and photoluminescence excitation spectra have been measured on samples of hexagonal boron nitride microcrystalline powder, cubic boron nitride single crystal, and boron nitride nanotubes (mixture of single-walled and multi-walled with some h-BN precursor). The reason for studying these 3 samples in a comparative fashion is that nanotube BN, while based on a rolled hexagonal-BN (sp2-bonded) sheet, is expected to take on more sp3 bond-character reminiscent of cubic-BN as the curvature becomes tighter. With some simplicity of statement, this study was planned to view spectroscopy of nanotube BN with respect to its two limiting cases of bond character, all measured in …