Synthetic organic chemists still aim to understand the scalable synthesis of elemental, two-dimensional (2D) materials beyond graphene. In a new report, Marc G. Cuxart and a team of researchers in physics, chemistry and electrical and computer engineering in France and Germany, introduced a versatile method of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to grow borophenes and borophene heterostructures via the selective use of diborane originating from traceable byproducts of borazine. The team successfully synthesized metallic borophene polymorphs on Iridium (IR) (III) and Copper (Cu) (III) single-crystal substrates alongside insulating hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) to form atomically precise lateral borophene—hBN interfaces also known as vertical van der Waals heterostructures. This structure protected borophene from immediate oxidation due to the presence of a single insulating hBN overlayer. This direct approach and ability to synthesize high-quality borophenes with large single-crystalline domains via chemical vapor deposition can open a range of opportunities to study their fundamental properties. The work is now published in Science Advances.