Nanostructured silicon carbide (SiC) is considered today as a good alternative to the conventional materials for various multidisciplinary applications. In this thesis, SiC nanostructures were elaborated by means of electrochemical etching and laser ablation techniques. The first part of the thesis clarifies size-dependence of optical properties as well as importance of local-field effects onto...

Multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) arrays have been directly synthesized from templated Fe2O3 nanoparticles on the C-face of 4H-SiC substrates by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD), and the room-temperature thermal resistances of SiC-MWCNT-Ag interfaces at 69–345 kPa as well as the thermal resistances of SiCMWCNT-Ag interfaces up to 250 C (at 69 kPa) have been measured using a ...

Nanoditches from selective etching of periodically twinned SiC nanowires were employed to hinder the migration and coalescence of Pd nanoparticles supported on the nanowires, and thus to improve their catalytic stability for total combustion of methane. The results show that the etched Pd/SiC catalyst can keep the methane conversion of almost 100% while the unetched one has an obvious decline i...

The performances of different promoters (CeO2, ZrO2 and Ce0.5Zr0.5O2 solid solution) modified Pd/SiC catalysts for methane combustion are studied. XRD and XPS results showed that Zr 4+ could be incorporated into the CeO2 lattice to form Zr0.5Ce0.5O2 solid solution. The catalytic activities of Pd/CeO2/SiC and Pd/ZrO2/SiC are lower than that of Pd/Zr0.5Ce0.5O2/SiC. The Pd/Zr0.5Ce0.5O2/SiC catalys...

Mg-based metal matrix nanocomposites (MMNCs) with mechanical properties, superior to those of coarse-grained composites, are promising structural materials for applications in the automotive and aerospace industries. The research in this area was primarily focused earlier on either micro-scaled reinforcements or nano-scaled reinforcements with very low volume fractions. MMNCs with high volume f...

Silicon carbide is the most important and versatile non-oxide ceramic. Powder injection molding (PIM) is a method of high-speed fabrication of complex near-net shapes of SiC and other powders. Green micro-machining (GMM) is used to extend the shaping capability of green ceramics and powder metallurgy to smaller feature sizes. Debinding—removal of organic additives—is the rate-limiting step in P...

Microstructural inhomogeneity generally deteriorates the corrosion resistance of materials due to the galvanic effect and interfacial issues. However, the situation may change for nanostructured materials. This article reports our studies on the corrosion behavior of SiC nanoparticle-reinforced Al6061 matrix composite. It was observed that the corrosion resistance of Al6061 increased when SiC n...

A novel composite photocatalyst was synthesized by loading 5 wt % of platinum cobalt alloy on 3C-SiC nanowires and powder (Pt-Co-SiC) respectively via a simple polyol reduction method. Pt-Co-SiC were comprehensively characterized by SEM, HRTEM, XRD, PL, and XPS. The results indicated that Pt-Co nanoparticles in the size of 2-5 nm were dispersed homogeneously in the SiC nanowires and powders. Th...