Study on the Development of AlN Particles Synthesized by Gas/Liquid Reaction <i>In Situ</i>

Abstract

AlN particles can be synthesized by blowing Nitrogen gas into liquid metal. At high temperature Nitrogen molecules decompose to atoms and react with Al to create AlN. EDX diffraction shows that weight ratio of the particles fully coincides with the ratio of standard atomic mass between Al and N (about 2), confirming that the particles are AlN. The SEM images show that AlN particles size varies from several hundred nanometers to some micrometers, depending on the contact time between gas bubbles and liquid metal. A simple model shows that the growth rate of the AlN particles (0.148 nm/s) at the early stage is only a half of that at finishing stage (0.305 nm/s), this may be due to the difficulty of the nucleation at the early stage. The formation rate of AlN was calculated based on the X-ray diffraction and shows the same tendency, as the growth rate.