High temperature performance of coaxial h-BN/CNT wires above 1,000 °C: Thermionic electron emission and thermally activated conductivity

Abstract

The development of wires and cables that can tolerate extremely high temperatures will be very important for probing extreme environments, such as in solar exploration, fire disasters, high-temperature materials processing, aeronautics and astronautics. In this paper, a lightweight I high-temperature coaxial h-boron nitride (BN)/carbon nanotube (CNT) wire is synthesized by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) epitaxial growth of h-BN on CNT yarn. The epitaxially grown h-BN acts as both an insulating material and a jacket that protects against oxidation. It has been shown that the thermionic electron emission (1,200 K) and thermally activated conductivity (1,000 K) are two principal mechanisms I for insulation failure of h-BN at high temperatures. The thermionic emission of h-BN can provide the work function of h-BN, which ranges from 4.22 to 4.61 eV in the temperature range of 1,306-1,787 K. The change in the resistivity of h-BN with temperature follows the ohmic conduction model of an insulator, and it can provide the "electron activation energy" (the energy from the Fermi level to the conduction band of h-BN), which ranges from 2.79 to 3.08 eV, corresponding to a band gap for h-BN ranging from 5.6 to 6.2 eV. However, since the leakage current is very I small, both phenomena have no obvious influence on the signal transmission at the working temperature. This lightweight coaxial h-BN/CNT wire can tolerate 1,200 °C in air and can transmit electrical signals as normal. It is hoped that this lightweight high-temperature wire will open up new possibilities for a wide range of applications in extreme high-temperature conditions.