Spontaneous formation of boron nitride nanotube fibers by boron impurity reduction in laser ablation of ammonia borane

Nano Convergence

Hunsu Lee¹  Dong Su Bae²  Kun-Hong Lee²  Chunghun Kim³  Myung Jong Kim³  Omar Khater⁴  Keun Su Kim⁵  Homin Shin⁵ 

[1]Composite Materials Application Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology

[2]Department of Chemical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology

[3]Department of Chemistry, Gachon University

[4]Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University

[5]Security and Disruptive Technologies Research Centre, National Research Council Canada

关键词: Boron nitride nanotubes;    Laser ablation;    Ammonia borane;    Homogeneous nucleation;    Spontaneous fiber formation;    Pressure effect;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40580-022-00312-y

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract Highly crystalline and few-walled boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) had been synthesized by laser ablation using only ammonia borane as a precursor. As a molecular precursor, ammonia borane supplied both B and N atoms with a ratio of 1:1, and BNNTs were formed via the homogeneous nucleation of BN radicals, not the growth from boron nano-droplets, which is a generally accepted growth mechanism of the laser-grown BNNTs. Owing to the absence of amorphous boron impurities, the van der Waals interaction among BNNTs became effective and thus a BNNT fibers was formed spontaneously during the BNNT synthesis. The BNNT growth and the subsequent fiber formation are found to occur only at high pressures of a surrounding gas. The mechanism behind the critical role of pressure was elucidated from the perspective of reaction kinetics and thermal fluid behaviors. A polarized Raman study confirmed that the BNNT fiber formed exhibits a good alignment of BNNTs, which implies great potential for continuous production of high-quality BNNT fibers for various applications.

【 授权许可】

Unknown