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Substitutional Si impurities in monolayer hexagonal boron nitride

We report the first observation of substitutional silicon atoms in single-layer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) using aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). The medium angle annular dark field (MAADF) images reveal silicon atoms exclusively filling boron vacancies. This structure is stable enough under electron beam for repeated imaging. Density functional theory (DFT) is used to study the energetics, structure and properties of the experimentally observed structure. The formation energies of all possible charge states of the different silicon substitutions (Si$_\mathrm{B}$, Si$_\mathrm{N}$ and Si$_\mathrm{BN}$) are calculated. The results reveal Si$_\mathrm{B}^{+1}$ as the most stable substitutional configuration. In this case, silicon atom elevates by 0.66Å out of the lattice with unoccupied defect levels in the electronic band gap above the Fermi level. The formation energy shows a slightly exothermic process. Our results unequivocally show that heteroatoms can be incorporated into the h-BN lattice opening way for applications ranging from single-atom catalysis to atomically precise magnetic structures.