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Thermal expansion of nano–boron carbide under constant DC electric field: An in situ energy dispersive X-ray diffraction study using a synchrotron probe

  • 2D and Nanomaterials
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Abstract

The thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) of nano-B4C having 50 nm mean particle size was measured as a function of applied direct current (DC) electric field strength varying from 0 to 12.7 V/mm and over a temperature range from 298 K up to 1273 K. The TEC exhibits a linear variation with temperature despite being measured over a range that is well below 50% of B4C’s normal melting temperature. The zeroth- and first-order TEC coefficients under zero-field condition are 4.8220 ± 0.009 × 10−6 K−1 and 1.462 ± 0.004 × 10−9 K−1, respectively. Both TECs exhibit applied DC electric field dependence. The higher the applied field strength, the steeper the linear thermal expansion response in nano-B4C, which suggests that the applied field affects the curvature of the interatomic potentials at the equilibrium bond length at a given temperature. No anisotropic thermal expansion with and without applied electric field was observed, although nano-B4C has a rhombohedral unit cell symmetry. The rhombohedral unit cell angle was determined as δR = 65.7046° (0.0007), and it remains unaffected by a change in temperature and applied electric field strength, which we attribute to B4C nanoparticle size and its carbon saturation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their gratitude for the financial support provided by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Contract Nos. N00014-10-1-042 and N00014-17-1-2087, Sub-Award No. 4104–78982 from Purdue. The authors wish to thank Dr. Antti Makinen and Dr. Larry Kabacoff of the ONR for their valuable technical feedback. This research was carried out in part at the NSLS, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Material Sciences, and Division of Chemical Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. H.B. and İ.Ş. acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Education of the Turkish Republic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Kütahya Dumlupınar University, Kütahya, 43000, Turkey

    Hülya Biçer

  2. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, 08904, USA

    Hülya Biçer, Enver Koray Akdoğan & Thomas Tsakalakos

  3. Deparment of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Konya Technical University, Konya, 42250, Turkey

    İlyas Şavklıyıldız

  4. US Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Adelphi, Maryland, 21005, USA

    Christopher Haines

  5. National Synchrotron Light Source I & II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, 11973, USA

    Zhong Zhong

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  1. Hülya Biçer
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  2. Enver Koray Akdoğan
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Correspondence to Hülya Biçer.

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Biçer, H., Akdoğan, E.K., Şavklıyıldız, İ. et al. Thermal expansion of nano–boron carbide under constant DC electric field: An in situ energy dispersive X-ray diffraction study using a synchrotron probe. Journal of Materials Research 35, 90–97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2019.382

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