First non-icosahedral boron allotrope synthesized at high pressure and high temperature

Abstract

Theoretical predictions of pressure-induced phase transformations often become long-standing enigmas because of limitations of contemporary available experimental possibilities. Hitherto the existence of a non-icosahedral boron allotrope has been one of them. Here we report on the first non-icosahedral boron allotrope, which we denoted as ζ-B, with the orthorhombic α-Ga-type structure (space group Cmce) synthesized in a diamond anvil cell at extreme high-pressure high-temperature conditions (115 GPa and 2100 K). The structure of ζ-B was solved using single-crystal synchrotron X-ray diffraction and its compressional behavior was studied in the range of very high pressures (115 GPa to 135 GPa). Experimental validation of theoretical predictions reveals the degree of our up-to-date comprehension of condensed matter and promotes further development of the solid state physics and chemistry.

References in corpus (4)

• Ionic high-pressure form of elemental boron
• Boron: a Hunt for Superhard Polymorphs
• Phase relations in boron at pressure up to 18 GPa and temperature up to 2200 °C
• New ab initio approach for high pressure systems with application to a new high-pressure phase for boron: perturbative momentum-space potentials

Cited by in corpus (5)

• High-pressure synthesis of superhard and ultrahard materials
• Structural Motifs and Bonding in Two Families of Boron Structures Predicted at Megabar Pressures
• Phase transformation in boron under shock compression
• Fused borophenes: a new family of superhard materials
• The structure of thin boron nanowires predicted using evolutionary computations