Synthesis and Characterization of Rare Earth Nitride ScN and YN Microcrystalline

doi:10.15541/jim20160083

Abstract

Abstract:

Rare earth nitride ScN and YN crystals were synthesized through direct nitridation of Sc and Y metals with nitrogen using plasma assisted direct current arc discharge method. This new method is fast, low cost and high yield for preparing rare earth metal nitrides. Structural and elemental characterization indicate that the as-synthesized ScN crystals are stoichiometric single crystalline and YN crystals are nonstoichiometric polycrystalline with random orientation single crystal particles. Considering XRD, EDS, HRTEM, and PL results of YN crystals, non-crystalline phase of metal Y is deduced to be formed in YN which contributes to the high contents of Y in EDS results. PL spectrum shows that the presence of large amounts of N vacancy in YN crystals. In addition, the microstructure formation mechanism of YN and ScN samples is analyzed. The difference between them is attributed to the high dissociation pressure of yttrium-group metal nitrides of limiting compositions as well as the high quench rate (10³ K/s) that would result in the disordered arrangements of the clusters of Y atoms and then forming non-crystalline structure upon quenching.

Key words: plasma assisted direct current arc discharge method, ScN, YN microcrystalline, stoichiometric, non-crystalline metal Y

CLC Number:

Q469

CONG Ri-Dong, CUI Hang, ZHANG Jian, CUI Qi-Liang. Synthesis and Characterization of Rare Earth Nitride ScN and YN Microcrystalline[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2016, 31(11): 1171-1176.

Figures/Tables 4

Fig. 1 Typical XRD patterns of (a) ScN and (b) YN samples

Fig. 2 SEM images of as-prepared (a) ScN and (b) YN. Insets are their corresponding EDS images

Fig. 3 Typical TEM analysis images of the finely ground ScN and YN (a, b) The insets are the corresponding SAED patterns of the regions marked in red circles. The circle marked regions are also correspondingly to for HRTEM characterization (c, d) showing ScN single crystalline structure corresponding to the (200) base plane, and YN polycrystalline structure composed of small single crystals with random crystallographic orientations

Fig. 4 Photoluminescence spectrum of the as-synthesized YN crystals

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