Ultra-low thermal expansion realized in giant negative thermal expansion materials through self-compensation

Fei-Ran Shen,Fei-Xiang Liang,Jing Wang,Bao-Gen Shen,Hao Kuang,Yao Liu,Ji-Rong Sun,Hui Wu,Kai-Ming Qiao,Min He,Jia Li,Qing-Zhen Huang,Lei Zhang,Ying Zhang,Feng-Xia Hu,Wen-Liang Zuo

doi:10.1063/1.4990481

Abstract

Materials with zero thermal expansion (ZTE) or precisely tailored thermal expansion are in urgent demand of modern industries. However, the overwhelming majority of materials show positive thermal expansion. To develop ZTE or negative thermal expansion (NTE) materials as compensators has become an important challenge. Here, we present the evidence for the realization of ultra-low thermal expansion in Mn–Co–Ge–In particles. The bulk with the Ni2In-type hexagonal structure undergoes giant NTE owing to a martensitic magnetostructural transition. The major finding is that the thermal expansion behavior can be totally controlled by modulating the crystallinity degree and phase transition from atomic scale. Self-compensation effect leads to ultra-low thermal expansion with a linear expansion coefficient as small as +0.68 × 10−6/K over a wide temperature range around room temperature. The present study opens an avenue to reach ZTE particularly from the large class of giant NTE materials based on phase transition.

Highlights

Materials with ultra-low thermal expansion or zero thermal expansion (ZTE) are being widely used in manufacturing industry,[1,2,3] such as precision engineered parts, optical mirrors, and printed circuit boards
ZTE is generally realized through combining positive thermal expansion (PTE) and negative thermal expansion (NTE) materials
Many efforts have been dedicated to search for NTE materials because compared with the vast number of PTE materials there are only a few compounds that were discovered showing NTE, e.g., ZrW2O8 (Ref. 6), CuO nanoparticles,[7] PbTiO3-based compounds,[8] (Bi,La)NiO3 (Ref. 9), antiperovskite manganese nitrides,[10,11,12,13] La(Fe,Co,Si)[13] (Ref. 14), MnCoGe-based materials,[15] and reduced Ca2RuO4 (Ref. 16)

Summary

Introduction

Materials with ultra-low thermal expansion or zero thermal expansion (ZTE) are being widely used in manufacturing industry,[1,2,3] such as precision engineered parts, optical mirrors, and printed circuit boards.

Results

Conclusion