Recension of boron nitride phase diagram based on high-pressure and high-temperature experiments

Abstract Cubic boron nitride and hexagonal boron nitride are the two predominant crystalline structures of boron nitride. They can interconvert under varying pressure and temperature conditions. However, this transformation requires overcoming significant potential barriers in dynamics, which poses great difficulty in determining the c-BN/h-BN phase boundary. This study used high-pressure in situ differential thermal measurements to ascertain the temperature of h-BN/c-BN conversion within the commonly used pressure range (3–6 GPa) for the industrial synthesis of c-BN to constrain the P – T phase boundary of h-BN/c-BN in the pressure–temperature range as much as possible. Based on the analysis of the experimental data, it is determined that the relationship between pressure and temperature conforms to the following equation: P = a + 1 b T . Here, P denotes the pressure (GPa) and T is the temperature (K). The coefficients are a = −3.8±0.8 GPa and b = 229.8±17.1 GPa/K. These findings call into question existing high-pressure and high-temperature phase diagrams of boron nitride, which seem to overstate the phase boundary temperature between c-BN and h-BN. The BN phase diagram obtained from this study can provide critical temperature and pressure condition guidance for the industrial synthesis of c-BN, thus optimizing synthesis efficiency and product performance.