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Materials

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Glow through what you go through

by Brianna Barbu
May 7, 2024

A circular window into a vacuum chamber with a glowing material inside.
Credit: Ayoyele Ologun/Michael Trenary

This material shines under harsh conditions. It’s called zirconium diboride, and it starts glowing when it’s heated to around 1200 K. The ZrB2 in this picture is being heated to over 2500 K. Ayoyele Ologun, who took the photo, is a graduate student in Michael Trenary’s surface science group at the University of Illinois Chicago. He researches the surface reaction mechanisms and thin film growth of metal borohydrides on the surface of zirconium diboride. The goal is to use insights from that work to make superhard materials, which are used in things like hypersonic aircraft. To prepare the ZrB2 crystal for surface chemistry experiments, Ologun heats it by bombarding it with electrons. Known as annealing, that process gets rid of traces of carbon, oxygen, and other impurities on the crystal surface.

Submitted by Ayoyele Ologun

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