Synthesis and investigation of boron phases at high pressures and temperatures

Boron, discovered as an element in 1808 and produced in pure form in 1909, still remains one of the most complicated light elements full of surprises. Even the number of pure boron polymorphs is a subject of intensive discussions. It is proven the existence of α-, β- and γ-boron phases. Structural details of the most common boron phase (β-B) are still not fully revealed. For decades boron remained the last stable element in the periodic table, whose ground state was not determined. It has been a subject of a longstanding controversy, whether α-B or β-B is the thermodynamically stable phase at ambient pressure and temperature. The existence of the α-tetragonal boron phase T-50 has been an open question since its first discovery. It was not clear if T-50 could be synthesized as a pure boron phase or its structure must be stabilized by the presence of carbon or nitrogen. Theorists claimed that T-50 could not exist at all because of its unstable electronic configuration. We have developed a method of synthesis of single crystals of α-boron. They were crystallized from a boron-platinum melt at high pressures (6-11 GPa) and high temperatures (1450-1875 K). An average size of the as-grown isometric crystals was 60 μm to 80 μm in maximum dimension. The crystal structure is in good agreement with the literature data. Detailed investigation of single crystals of α-boron using Raman spectroscopy was performed under elevated pressures and temperatures. The behaviour of the Raman modes under pressure was studied both theoretically and experimentally. Single crystals of β-boron were grown at temperatures above 1550 K and pressures up to 11 GPa using the similar methodology like that worked out for synthesis of α-boron. In a series of experiments above 8 GPa we synthesized single crystals of tetragonal δ-boron (also known in literature as α-tetragonal boron or T-50) and refined the crystal structure of this phase based on synchrotron X-ray diffraction data. The purity of δ-boron was confirmed by means of the microprobe analysis and the electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). A new, so far unknown boron phase, ε-boron, was synthesized at pressures of 8-10 GPa and temperatures between 2000-2250 K. The microprobe analysis and EELS revealed that the samples were not contaminated. The crystal structure of the new phase was determined by means of single crystal X-ray diffraction. ε-boron crystallizes in a R-3m space group with the unit cell parameters a = 5.5940(7) Å and c = 12.0756(16) Å (in hexagonal setting). The unit cell contains 15 boron atoms. The structure can be presented by the network of B12 icosahedra with a group of three boron atoms in the inter-icosahedra space. This phase is isostructural to boron carbide B13C2 (if carbon atoms are substituted by boron ones). Measured hardness is ~60 GPa which places ε-boron in the family of superhard materials. We have demonstrated that δ-boron and ε-boron are metastable polymorphs because (a) they were found only together with other stable boron phases (α-, β-, or γ-B), and (b) upon heating at high pressure, both δ-B and ε-B transform to β- or γ-B, if the PT conditions correspond to the fields of stability of the latter. Summarising, in the course of the present work the high-pressure high-temperature synthesis of the five boron polymorphs was established as a reproducible, verifiable and well-documented process. Following the synthesis prescription one can grow single crystals of α-B, β-B, γ-B, δ-B, and ε-B phases. Based on results of numerous HPHT experiments, the phase boundaries between the stable boron phases (α-B, β-B, γ-B) were found. Thus, our serial exploration of the pressure-temperature field using the large volume press synthesis technique resulted in establishing the phase diagram of boron (showing also the PT fields of the appearance of its two metastable phases, δ-B and ε-B) in the pressure interval of 3 GPa to 18 GPa at temperatures between 1073 K and 2423 K. Based on our experimental data and linear extrapolation of the α/β phase boundary down to ambient pressure we could resolve a longstanding controversy on the ground state of boron in favour of the α-B phase.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Bayreuth

Year

2012

Author dc:creator

• Parakhonskiy, Gleb

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dubrovinskiy, Leonid

Repository record source_url

https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/173/

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:epub.uni-bayreuth.de:173