EELS Investigations of Carbon-rich Boron Carbide Nanomaterials

Abstract

Boron carbide has been widely utilized in industry and military because of its low mass-density, superhigh hardness and good electric conductivity [1,2]. It is predicted that its excellent mechanical properties can be enhanced in nanomaterials [3]. The material is also one kind of thermoelectric compound working at high temperatures above 1000 o C [4]. However, its thermoelectric properties, such as Seebeck coefficient and figure-of-merit, are low and need to be enhanced significantly for potential applications. Nanostructuring is an effective approach to improve thermoelectric properties [5] and boron carbide nanocomposites with high performances can be bottom-up-ed from nanomaterials by the approach. So boron carbide nanomaterials play a key role as starting materials of the carbide nanocomposites. Here, carbon-rich boron carbide nanomaterials are synthesized and characterized by electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) on transmission electron microscope (TEM).

Recent Progress on Irradiation-Induced Defect Engineering of Two-Dimensional 2H-MoS2 Few Layers

“…Besides MoS 2 2D layers, the irradiation techniques can be employed to tune physical properties of other disulfide 2D materials, such as NiS 2 urea-electrocatalysts [217], WS 2 hybrid catalysts [218], as well as selenide water-electrocatalysts [219], perovskite electrocatalytic nanoparticles [220], C 3 N 4 catalytic materials [221], hydroxide nanosheet battery-electrodes [222], oxide photocatalysts [223], low-dimensional thermoelectric materials [224,225], graphene and carbon nanotubes [226][227][228], and even porous electrodes [229,230].…”

Boron carbide amorphous solid with tunable band gap

“…The compound was also synthesized by magnesiothermic reductions, vapor-phase reactions, liquid-phase reactions, and other methods [9]. Among these methods is the microwave-assisted carbothermal reduction, which is fast and cost-effective in synthesizing B x C nanomaterials, such as B 4 C boron carbide nanocrystalline powders [19,25] and carbon-rich BC 2 amorphous powders [26]. The carbothermal reduction technique has also been employed to synthesize metal nitrides [27], TiC powders [28], ZrB 2 powders [29], and TiB 2 powders [30].…”