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Chemical Vapor Deposition of Metal Borides, 4: The Application of Polyhedral Boron Clusters to the Chemical Vapor Deposition Formation of Gadolinium Boride Thin‐film Materials
Author(s) -
Kher Shreyas S.,
Tan Yexin,
Spencer James T.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
applied organometallic chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.53
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1099-0739
pISSN - 0268-2605
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-0739(199604)10:3/4<297::aid-aoc460>3.0.co;2-d
Subject(s) - gadolinium , chemistry , boride , decaborane , chemical vapor deposition , analytical chemistry (journal) , scanning electron microscope , thin film , boron , inorganic chemistry , materials science , nanotechnology , organic chemistry , chromatography , composite material
The chemical vapor deposition of high‐quality polycrystalline thin films of gadolinium hexaboride, GdB 6 , was achieved through the vacuum copyrolysis of gas‐phase boron hydride clusters, such as nido‐ pentaborane(9) [B 5 H 9 ] and nido ‐decaborane(14) [B 10 H 14 ], and gadolinium(III) chloride. These films typically displayed deep blue colors, were very hard and adhered very well to most deposition substrates. Depositions were carried out on a variety of substrates including quartz, copper, silicon, SiO 2 and ceramic materials. X‐ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopic data showed the formation of highly crystalline materials with a strongly preferred orientation in the (111) direction. Attempted depositions of gadolinium boride films on CaF 2 (111) resulted in the apparent formation of a ternary (Ca/Gd)B 6 phase in which the calcium is presumably substituted for gadolinium atoms in the cubic GdB 6 structure. The gadolinium boride thin films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X‐ray emission spectroscopy (XES), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), and glow‐discharge mass spectrometry (GDMS). GDMS showed that the GdB 6 films were relatively uniform in composition in the bulk material.