Chemical vapor deposition of metal borides: 6. The formation of neodymium boride thin film materials from polyhedral boron clusters and metal halides by chemical vapor deposition

The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of crystalline thin films of neodymium hexaboride (NdB 6 ) was achieved using either nido ‐pentaborane(9) or nido ‐decaborane(14) with neodymium(III) chloride on different substrates. The highly crystalline NdB 6 films were formed at relatively moderate temperatures (835 °C, ca. 1 µm/h) and were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray emission spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction and glow discharge mass spectrometry. The NdB 6 polycrystalline films were found to be pure and uniform in composition in the bulk material. Depositions using CoCl 2 , NdCl 3 and B 5 H 9 as the CVD precursors resulted in the formation of a mixture of NdB 6 and CoB phases, rather than the ternary phase. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.