超硬材料.ppt

Designing Superhard Materials By Richard B.Kaner, John J. Gilman, Sarah H.Tolbert 设计超硬材料 A nanoindenter, used to measure the hardness and related properties of materials An indentation left in case-hardened steel after a Vickers hardness test. Superhard Materials Ultrahard materials are used in many applications, from cutting and polishing tools to wear-resistant coatings.Diamond remains the hardest known material, despite years of synthetic and theoretical efforts to improve upon it. However, even diamond has limitations.It is not effective for cutting ferrous metals, including steel, because of a chemical reaction that produces iron carbide. Cubic boron nitride —the second-hardest material, with a structure analogous to that of diamond—can be used to cut ferrous metals. However, it does not occur naturally and must be synthesized under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature, making it quite expensive. New superhard materials are thus not only of great scientific interest, but also could be very useful. Superhard Materials To design new superhard materials, we must understand what makes diamond special. In diamond, tetrahedrally bonded sp3 carbon atoms form a three-dimensional, covalent network of high symmetry. Other carbonbased materials have shorter and stronger carbon bonds, but not in three dimensions. For example, the trigonal sp2 bonds in graphite form sheets with shorter and stronger carbon- carbon bonds. But only weak van der Waals interactions hold the sheets together, allowing layers of graphite to cleave readily. A three-dimensional network composed of short, strong bonds is thus critical for hardness. Superhard Materials In thinking about new ultrahard materials, it is useful to consider the types of structural changes that a material can undergo under load. These changes can be divided into elastic (reversible) and plastic (irreversible) deformations. A material is considered stiff if it is difficult to compress elastically. Such a mate