Thermal expansion of MAX phases along different directions tended to be different because of the anisotropy of hexagonal crystals. Herein, a new Hf2SeC phase was synthesized and confirmed to be relatively isotropic, whose coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs) were determined to be 9.73 {\mu}K-1 and 10.18 {\mu}K-1 along a and c directions. The strong M-S bond endowed Hf2SC and Zr2SC lower CTEs than Hf2SeC and Zr2SeC. A good relationship between the thermal expansion anisotropy and the ratio of elastic stiffness constant c11 and c33 was established. This straightforward approximation could be used to roughly predict the thermal expansion anisotropy of MAX phases.
@article{arxiv.2111.08257,
title = {Synthesis and thermal expansion of chalcogenide MAX phase Hf2SeC},
author = {Xudong Wang and Ke Chen and Erxiao Wu and Yiming Zhang and Haoming Ding and Nianxiang Qiu and Yujie Song and Shiyu Du and Zhifang Chai and Qing Huang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.08257},
year = {2021}
}