Giant Increase of Hardness in Silicon Carbide by Metastable Single Layer Diamond-Like Coating.

ABSTRACT: Silicon carbide (SiC) is one of the hardest known materials. Its exceptional mechanical properties combined with its high thermal conductivity make it a very attractive material for a variety of technological applications. Recently, it is discovered that two-layer epitaxial graphene films on SiC can undergo a pressure activated phase transition into a sp³ diamene structure at room temperature. Here, it is shown that epitaxial graphene films grown on SiC can increase the hardness of SiC up to 100% at low loads (up to 900 µN), and up to 30% at high loads (10 mN). By using a Berkovich diamond indenter and nanoindentation experiments, it is demonstrated that the 30% increase in hardness is present even for indentations depths of 175 nm, almost three hundred times larger than the gra

SUBMITTER: Rejhon M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9951309 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature