Metal Immiscibility Route to Synthesis of Ultrathin Carbides, Borides, and Nitrides

Zixing Wang, Vidya Kochat, Prafull Pandey, Sanjay Kashyap, Soham Chattopadhyay, Atanu Samanta, Suman Sarkar, Praveena Manimunda, Xiang Zhang, Syed Asif, Abhisek K. Singh, Kamanio Chattopadhyay, Chandra Sekhar Tiwary, Pulickel M. Ajayan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ultrathin ceramic coatings are of high interest as protective coatings from aviation to biomedical applications. Here, a generic approach of making scalable ultrathin transition metal-carbide/boride/nitride using immiscibility of two metals is demonstrated. Ultrathin tantalum carbide, nitride, and boride are grown using chemical vapor deposition by heating a tantalum-copper bilayer with corresponding precursor (C2H2, B powder, and NH3). The ultrathin crystals are found on the copper surface (opposite of the metal–metal junction). A detailed microscopy analysis followed by density functional theory based calculation demonstrates the migration mechanism, where Ta atoms prefer to stay in clusters in the Cu matrix. These ultrathin materials have good interface attachment with Cu, improving the scratch resistance and oxidation resistance of Cu. This metal–metal immiscibility system can be extended to other metals to synthesize metal carbide, boride, and nitride coatings.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1700364
JournalAdvanced Materials
Volume29
Issue number29
DOIs
StatePublished - 4 Aug 2017
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Keywords

  • borides
  • nitrides
  • oxidation resistance
  • scratch resistance
  • transition-metal carbides
  • ultrathin materials

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