Fused borophenes: a new family of superhard materials

Abstract

The search of new superhard materials has received a strong impulse by industrial demands for low-cost alternatives to diamond and $c$-BN, such as metal borides. In this Letter we introduce a new family of superhard materials, "fused borophenes", containing 2D boron layers which are interlinked to form a 3D network. These materials, identified through a high-throughput scan of BxC1-x structures, exhibit Vicker's hardnesses comparable to those of the best commercial metal borides. Due to their low formation enthalpies, fused borophenes could be synthesized by high-temperature methods, starting from appropriate precursors, or through quenching of high-pressure phases.

5 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Advanced capabilities for materials modelling with Quantum ESPRESSO
• Intrinsic Correlation between Hardness and Elasticity in Polycrystalline Materials and Bulk Metallic Glasses
• Novel Precursors for Boron Nanotubes: The Competition of Two-Center and Three-Center Bonding in Boron Sheets
• Review of borophene and its potential applications
• Machine Learning and Evolutionary Prediction of Superhard B-C-N Compounds
• High-Temperature Conventional Superconductivity in the Boron-Carbon system: Material Trends
• A hunt for ultrahard materials
• Structural Motifs and Bonding in Two Families of Boron Structures Predicted at Megabar Pressures