Self-catalyst growth of single-crystalline CaB6 nanostructures

Large-scale calcium hexaboride (CaB6) nanostructures have been successfully fabricated with self-catalyst method using calcium (Ca) powders and boron trichloride (BCl3) gas mixed with hydrogen and argon. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) were used to characterize the compositions, morphologies, and structures of the samples. Our results show that the nanowires are highly single crystals elongated preferentially in the [1 1 0] direction. The growth mechanism based on the self-catalyst process is simply discussed.