comparison of silicon nitride nanofibers synthesized using silica nanopowders and silica gel比较使用硅氮化硅纳米纤维的合成技术和硅胶.pdfVIP

Materials Sciences and Applications, 2012, 3, 523-529 523 /10.4236/msa.2012.38074 Published Online August 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/msa) Comparison of Silicon Nitride Nanofibers Synthesized Using Silica Nanopowders and Silica Gel Sanket Deshmukh, Kei-Peng Jen, Sridhar Santhanam Mechanical Engineering Department, Villanova University, Villanova, USA. Email: sridhar.santhanam@ Received May 9th, 2012; revised June 10th, 2012; accepted July 10th, 2012 ABSTRACT Nanofibers of alpha silicon nitride were grown by a vapor-solid mechanism at 1450˚C, through the carbothermal reduction process. Two different precursor silica sources were used: silica nanopowders and silica gel. The effect of processing geometry, particularly the stacking orientations of the graphite substrates, silica pellets, and crucibles, on the density of nanofiber growth was also explored. The silicon nitride nanofibers appear with a predominantly rectangular cross section from silica nanopowder precursors and with a circular cross section for silica gel precursors. Silica gel precursors produce nanofiber products that are smaller in cross section but greater in length than the products from silica nanopowder precursors. The processing geometry must be suitably designed such that the vapor-solid mechanism that is responsible for the formation of the nanofibers is not disrupted. Keywords: Silicon Nitride; Nanofibers; Carbothermal 1. Introduction version to silicon nitride nanorods. Han et al. [18] used One dimensional nanoscale structures of oxide and non- carbon nanotubes as templates for the synthesis of silicon nitride nanorods. A silicon-silica powder mixtur