Related papers: Boron: a Hunt for Superhard Polymorphs

Borides are a rich material family. To push the boundaries of borides' properties and applications into broader fields, we have conducted systematic theoretical and experimental searches for synthesizable phases in ternary borides…

Studying crystal structures of superprotonic phases of alkali metal hydrogen sulfates and selenates, a very unusual phenomenon has been revealed. Dynamically disordered hydrogen atoms with low position occupancies are clearly seen in…

The kaon, the lightest hadron containing a strangeness quark, is very peculiar. It is a Nambu-Goldstone boson, but significantly heavier than the pion. As a result, its interaction with a matter particle, such as the nucleon or a…

This is a report on some highlights of some research on the rare light elements, lithium (Li), beryllium (Be), and boron (B), that I presented in my Henry Norris Russell Lecture in January, 2020. It is not a comprehensive review of work on…

Carbon is one of the most intriguing elements in the Periodic Table. It forms many allotropes, some being known from ancient times (diamond and graphite) and some discovered ten to twenty years ago (fullerenes, nanotubes). Quite…

A set of general constructing schemes is unveiled to predict a large family of stable boron monoelemental, hollow fullerenes with magic numbers 32+8k (k>=0). The remarkable stabilities of these new boron fullerenes are then studied by…

Atomically thin boron nitride (BN) is an important two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterial, with many properties distinct from graphene. In this feature article, these unique properties and associated applications often not possible from graphene…

Recently synthesized two-dimensional (2D) boron, borophene, exhibits a novel metallic behavior rooted in the s-p orbital hybridization, distinctively different from other 2D materials such as sulfides/selenides and semi-metallic graphene.…

The search for metallic boron allotropes has attracted great attention in the past decades and recent theoretical works predict the existence of metallicity in monolayer boron. Here, we synthesize the \b{eta}12-sheet monolayer boron on a…

Secondary Ions Mass Spectroscopy and Hall effect measurements were performed on boron doped silicon with concentration between 0.02 at.% and 12 at.%. Ultra-high boron doping was made by saturating the chemisorption sites of a Si wafer with…

Theoretical predictions of pressure-induced phase transformations often become long-standing enigmas because of limitations of contemporary available experimental possibilities. Hitherto the existence of a non-icosahedral boron allotrope…

New boron-rich sulfide B6S and selenide B6Se have been discovered from high pressure - high temperature synthesis combined with ab initio evolutionary crystal structure prediction, and studied by synchrotron X-ray diffraction and Raman…

Boron-based clathrate materials, typically with three-dimensional networks of B atoms, have tunable properties through substitution of guest atoms, but the tuning of B cages themselves has not yet been developed. By combining crystal…

The element boron has long been central to two-dimensional superconducting materials, and numerous studies have demonstrated the presence of superconductivity in various boron-based structures. Recent work introduced a new variant: Bilayer…

The visible world is founded on the proton, the only composite building block of matter that is stable in nature. Consequently, understanding the formation of matter relies on explaining the dynamics and the properties of the proton's bound…

A first cobalt boride with the Co:B ratio below 1:1, Co5B16, was synthesized under high-pressure high-temperature conditions. It has a unique orthorhombic structure (space group Pmma, a = 19.1736(12), b = 2.9329(1), and c = 5.4886(2) {\AA},…

We identify a new family of boron-rich compounds consisting of interconnected B$_{12}$ icosahedra, and electropositive guest atoms ($X$) in interstitial sites. These structures were found through first-principles crystal structure…

One of the great challenges of modern science is to faithfully model, and understand, matter at a wide range of scales. Starting with atoms, the vastness of the space of possible configurations poses a formidable challenge to any simulation…

Despite great technological importance and many investigations, a material with measured hardness comparable to that of diamond or cubic boron nitride has yet to be identified. Combined theoretical and experimental investigations led to the…

We report the discovery of superconductivity in boron-doped diamond synthesized at high pressure (8-9 GPa) and temperature (2,500-2,800 K). Electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and field-dependent resistance…