Impurity induced non-bulk stacking in chemically exfoliated h-BN nanosheetsElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c3nr33375b

Structural characterization of 2D nanomaterials is an important step towards their future applications. In this work we carried out imaging and structural analysis of 2D h-BN produced by chemical-exfoliation, emphasizing the stacking order in few-layer sheets. Our analysis, for the first time has shown conclusively that non-bulk stacking can exist in 2D h-BN. A structural analysis focussed on the stacking sequence of 2D h-BN nanosheets produced by chemical-exfoliation demonstrates how non-bulk stacking can indeed exist.