Engineering Phonons in Compositionally Complex Carbide Ceramics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Malakkal, Linu, French, Jarin C, Trinh, Lanh, Bawane, Kaustubh K, Zhou, Shuxiang, Hua, Zilong, He, Lingfeng, Lu, Yongfeng, Cui, Bai
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Malakkal, Linu
French, Jarin C
Trinh, Lanh
Bawane, Kaustubh K
Zhou, Shuxiang
Hua, Zilong
He, Lingfeng
Lu, Yongfeng
Cui, Bai
author_facet Malakkal, Linu
French, Jarin C
Trinh, Lanh
Bawane, Kaustubh K
Zhou, Shuxiang
Hua, Zilong
He, Lingfeng
Lu, Yongfeng
Cui, Bai
contents In the pursuit of advanced ceramic materials with exceptional irradiation-resistance and high-temperature tolerance for nuclear applications, compositionally complex carbides (CCCs) have emerged as a highly promising class of candidate materials for extreme environments. In such conditions, critical material properties such as thermal stability, elasticity, thermal conductivity and thermodynamics behavior are predominantly influenced by phonons. In CCCs, pronounced cation disorder can lead to significant phonon scattering due to inherent mass and force constant variations, impacting these critical properties. In this study, we used ab initio calculations to predict the phonon band structures and systematically explore the influence of mass and force constant variance on the phonon spectral function of CCCs with a rock salt structure, ranging from binary to five-metal component carbides. Our findings reveal that the selection and concentration of constituent elements can be strategically utilized to tune the phonon band structure, phonon bandgap and phonon scattering in CCCs, thereby enabling control over phonon-related properties. Additionally, we measured the thermal conductivity of some of these CCCs using the spatial-domain thermoreflectance technique. Interestingly, the measured thermal conductivity of some of these CCCs indicates that five-component ceramics exhibit higher thermal conductivity than certain ternary and binary alloys. This observation contrasts with the expectation that greater cation disorder would result in more scattering and lower thermal conductivity. This intriguing result opens up the possibility of discovering CCCs with better thermal conductivity, presenting new opportunities for their application in extreme environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_04812
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Engineering Phonons in Compositionally Complex Carbide Ceramics
Malakkal, Linu
French, Jarin C
Trinh, Lanh
Bawane, Kaustubh K
Zhou, Shuxiang
Hua, Zilong
He, Lingfeng
Lu, Yongfeng
Cui, Bai
Materials Science
In the pursuit of advanced ceramic materials with exceptional irradiation-resistance and high-temperature tolerance for nuclear applications, compositionally complex carbides (CCCs) have emerged as a highly promising class of candidate materials for extreme environments. In such conditions, critical material properties such as thermal stability, elasticity, thermal conductivity and thermodynamics behavior are predominantly influenced by phonons. In CCCs, pronounced cation disorder can lead to significant phonon scattering due to inherent mass and force constant variations, impacting these critical properties. In this study, we used ab initio calculations to predict the phonon band structures and systematically explore the influence of mass and force constant variance on the phonon spectral function of CCCs with a rock salt structure, ranging from binary to five-metal component carbides. Our findings reveal that the selection and concentration of constituent elements can be strategically utilized to tune the phonon band structure, phonon bandgap and phonon scattering in CCCs, thereby enabling control over phonon-related properties. Additionally, we measured the thermal conductivity of some of these CCCs using the spatial-domain thermoreflectance technique. Interestingly, the measured thermal conductivity of some of these CCCs indicates that five-component ceramics exhibit higher thermal conductivity than certain ternary and binary alloys. This observation contrasts with the expectation that greater cation disorder would result in more scattering and lower thermal conductivity. This intriguing result opens up the possibility of discovering CCCs with better thermal conductivity, presenting new opportunities for their application in extreme environments.
title Engineering Phonons in Compositionally Complex Carbide Ceramics
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04812