In 2003 M. Corso et al. from Osterwalder's group at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, published in Science [M. Corso et al., Science 303, 217 (2004)] the discovery of a new inorganic nanostructured two dimensional material, called nanomesh, which so far has no analog in systems composed of carbon.

The discovered boron nitride nanomesh is composed of boron (B) and nitrogen (N) atoms, which form a highly regular mesh after high-temperature exposure of the clean rhodium (Rh (111)) single crystal to borazine . The nanomesh has a honeycomb-like superstructure (see figure) with apertures of 2nm and wires of 1nm. In 2003 a double-layer model was proposed, where each BN layer was offset in such a way as to expose a minimum metal surface area. In 2007 an alternative model emerged, which consists of a full single BN layer (no more holes), where "pores" are closer to the crystal surface than the wires.

The formation of the nanomesh is a self-assembly process, i.e. the organisation of the atoms is driven by the nature itself without any human intervention. The self-assembly process is likely driven due to close but different periodicities (lattice constants) of the BN nanomesh and the Rh substrate and a site dependent BN-bonding to the substrate.

The boron nitride nanomesh is stable towards air, vacuum and liquids, and it does not decompose up to temperatures of at least 796C (1070 K). In addition the BN nanomesh can serve as a template to organize molecules, as is exemplified by the decoration of the mesh with C60 molecules. These characteristics promise interesting applications of the nanomesh in areas like nanocatalysis, surface functionalisation, spintronics, quantum computing and data storage media like hard drives.

Well-ordered nanomeshes are grown by thermal decomposition of borazine (HBNH)₃, a colorless substance that is liquid at room temperature (see molecule). The Nanomesh results after exposing the atomically clean Rh (111) surface to borazine by chemical vapor deposition (CVD).

The Rh (111) substrate is kept at a temperature of 796°C (1070 K) when borazine is introduced in the vacuum chamber at a dose of about 40 L (1 Langmuir = 10^-6 torr sec). A typical borazine vapor pressure inside the ultrahigh vacuum chamber during the exposure is 3x10^-7 mbar. After cooling down to room temperature, the regular mesh structure is observed in STM images. A photograph of Zurich's experimental setup for borazine evaporation is presented on the right.

Different complementary experimental techniques are used to study the boron nitride Nanomesh on Rh (111): Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) allows to take a direct look on the local real space structure of the surface, while low energy electron diffraction (LEED) (more details) patterns are formed by surface structures ordered over a macroscopic sample area. Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) gives information about the electronic states in the outermost atomic layers of a sample, while X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) allows to get information about the electronic states of the innermost atomic layers.

Zurich's experimental setup is shown, where it is possible to perform photoemission, LEED and STM measurements on the very same sample surface under UHV.