Rediscovering the Crystal Chemistry of Borides

Georgiy Akopov; Michael T Yeung; Richard B Kaner

doi:10.1002/adma.201604506

Rediscovering the Crystal Chemistry of Borides

Adv Mater. 2017 Jun;29(21). doi: 10.1002/adma.201604506. Epub 2017 Mar 21.

Authors

Georgiy Akopov¹, Michael T Yeung¹, Richard B Kaner^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.

PMID: 28323358
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201604506

Abstract

For decades, borides have been primarily studied as crystallographic oddities. With such a wide variety of structures (a quick survey of the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database counts 1253 entries for binary boron compounds!), it is surprising that the applications of borides have been quite limited despite a great deal of fundamental research. If anything, the rich crystal chemistry found in borides could well provide the right tool for almost any application. The interplay between metals and the boron results in even more varied material's properties, many of which can be tuned via chemistry. Thus, the aim of this review is to reintroduce to the scientific community the developments in boride crystal chemistry over the past 60 years. We tie structures to material properties, and furthermore, elaborate on convenient synthetic routes toward preparing borides.

Keywords: boron; crystallography; materials chemistry; solid-state chemistry.

Publication types

Review