Angle-resolved soft X-ray emission and absorption spectroscopy of hexagonal boron nitride

Angle-resolved soft X-ray emission and absorption spectra in the BK and NK regions of hexagonal BN were measured using polarized synchrotron radiation. The take-off/incident-angle-dependence on the spectral features in both X-ray emission and absorption is clearly observed. The configuration of the sigma and pi orbitals, which were calculated using discrete variational (DV)-Xalpha molecular orbital calculations, explains the angle-resolved soft X-ray emission and absorption spectra. The relative peak intensity of the 394-eV peak in the NK X-ray emission provides useful information about the BN layer ordering.