A survey of current research on a wide range of carbide, nitride and boride materials, covering the general issues relevant to the development and characterisation of a variety of advanced materials. Topics include structure and electronic properties, modeling, processing, high-temperature chemistry, oxidation and corrosion, mechanical behaviour, manufacturing and applications.
The volume complements more specialised books on specific materials as well as more general texts on ceramics or hard materials, presenting a survey of materials research as a key to technological development. After decades of research, the materials are being used in electronics, wear resistant, refractory and other applications, but numerous new applications are possible. Roughly equal numbers of papers cover theoretical and experimental research in the general field of materials science of refractory materials.
Audience: Researchers and graduate students in materials science and engineering.

Zusammenfassung
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia, 12-22 August 1998

Inhalt

1. State-of-the-Art and Future Avenues of Research.- The State-of-the-Art of High-Melting Point Compounds.- Basic Materials Research in the U.S. Department of Energy.- 2. Phase Equilibria, Structure and Electronic Properties.- Ternary Metal Boron Carbides: Constitution, Thermodynamics, Compound Formation and Structural Chemistry.- Atomic Ordering and Phase Equilibria in Strongly Nonstoichiometric Carbides and Nitrides.- On the Electronic Properties of Icosahedral Boron-Rich Solids.- 3. Surfaces and Interfaces.- FTIR Surface Spectrometry of High-Melting Point Compounds.- Surface Structure and Chemistry of the Boron-Rich Solids.- Numerical Modeling of Surface Reactions.- Interfaces in Ceramics.- Computational Modeling of Surface Layers of Refractory Compounds.- 4. Processing, Properties and Applications.- Fundamentals of Nitride-Based Superlattice Thin Films.- Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis of Carbides, Nitrides, and Borides.- Precursors for Carbide, Nitride and Boride Synthesis.- Interaction of Silicon Carbide and Nitride with Halogen Containing Compounds.- Boride/Nitride Composites: Synthesis and Properties.- Design and Process of Non-oxide Ceramics. Case Study: Factors Affecting Microstructure and Properties of Silicon Nitride.- Strength and Thermal Stress Resistance of Refractory Compounds.- Physics of Hardness of High-Melting Compounds.- High Temperature Carbide Structures in Nuclear Power.- Sol-Gel Synthesis of Silicon Carbide and Silicon Nitride Powders and Their Surface Properties.