The search of new superhard materials has received a strong impulse by industrial demands for low-cost alternatives to diamond and c-BN, such as metal borides. In this Letter we introduce a new family of superhard materials, "fused borophenes", containing 2D boron layers which are interlinked to form a 3D network. These materials, identified through a high-throughput scan of BxC1-x structures, exhibit Vicker's hardnesses comparable to those of the best commercial metal borides. Due to their low formation enthalpies, fused borophenes could be synthesized by high-temperature methods, starting from appropriate precursors, or through quenching of high-pressure phases.
@article{arxiv.2101.10013,
title = {Fused borophenes: a new family of superhard materials},
author = {Santanu Saha and Wolfgang von der Linden and Lilia Boeri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.10013},
year = {2021}
}