Boron-doped glassy carbon fabricated by chemical vapor deposition

A boron-doped glassy carbon was fabricated by chemical vapor deposition from a gaseous CH4/BCl3 mixture. It was characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy. Results show that the deposited carbon is characteristic of a glass-like carbon but with boron carbide nanocrystals around 20 nm in diameter uniformly distributed in its matrix. In contrast to the conventional non-graphitizable glassy carbon, the product behaved similarly to a graphitizable carbon on high-temperature treatment because of the strong catalytic graphitization effect of the boron. The glass carbon was transformed into lamellar carbon structures, probably by a dissolution-precipitation mechanism.