Structure
Boron nitride has been produced in an amorphous (a-BN) and crystalline forms. The most stable crystalline form is the hexagonal one, also called h-BN, α-BN, or g-BN (graphitic BN). It has a layered structure similar to graphite. Within each layer, boron and nitrogen atoms are bound by strong covalent bonds, whereas the layers are held together by weak van der Waals forces. The interlayer "registry" of these sheets differs, however, from the pattern seen for graphite, because the atoms are eclipsed, with boron atoms lying over and above nitrogen atoms. This registry reflects the polarity of the B-N bonds. Still, h-BN and graphite are very close neighbors and even the BC6N hybrids have been synthesized where carbon substitutes for some B and N atoms.
As diamond is less stable than graphite, cubic BN is less stable than h-BN, but the conversion rate between those forms is negligible at room temperature (again like diamond). The cubic form has the sphalerite crystal structure, the same as that of diamond, and is also called β-BN or c-BN. The wurtzite BN form (w-BN) has the same structure as lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal polymorph of carbon. In both c-BN and w-BN boron and nitrogen atoms are grouped into tetrahedra, but the angles between neighboring tetrahedra are different.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Read more about this topic: Boron Nitride
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Slumism is the pent-up anger of people living on the outside of affluence. Slumism is decay of structure and deterioration of the human spirit. Slumism is a virus which spreads through the body politic. As other “isms,” it breeds disorder and demagoguery and hate.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
“Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)