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High-pressure formation and characterization of a boron carbide polymorph featuring bent C–B–C chains

Akun Liang1,2,*, Umbertoluca Ranieri1, James Spender1, Charles Lamb1, Sarah Bolton1, Bernhard Massani1, Ryan Stewart McWilliams1, Timofey Fedotenko3, Konstantin Glazyrin3 et al.

Nico Giordano3, Jonathan Wright4, Florian Trybel5, and Dominique Laniel1,†

  • *Contact author: akliang@eitech.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: Dominique.Laniel@ed.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 104108 – Published 20 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/v5kf-svcz

Abstract

Boron carbide is a material of choice for multiple industries, e.g., aerospace, as a lightweight structural ceramic due to its high hardness, high melting temperature, and low density. However, its mechanical properties have been observed to radically degrade under shockwave compression, presumably as a consequence of stress-induced phase transitions resulting in its partial amorphization. So far, the physical mechanism underpinning this behavior remains unclear. Here, we report a pressure-induced phase transition in boron carbide occurring between 78 and 90 GPa during static compression in diamond anvil cells, both at room temperature and after quenching from high temperatures. The crystal structure of the new phase was solved and refined via synchrotron single-crystal x-ray diffraction measurements and further investigated by Raman spectroscopy as well as density functional theory calculations. The discovered high-pressure polymorph, mC60−B13C2, has strong resemblance with the known ambient conditions phase, hR45−B13C2, with the important distinction that the linear C–B–C chain linking B12 icosahedra in hR45−B13C2 is bent in mC60−B13C2. Such bending of the C–B–C chain has been hypothesized as key to explain boron carbide's drop in strength, phase transitions, and amorphization. The observed reversibility of the phase transition, as well as the formation of covalent bonds between B12 icosahedra and the bent C–B–C chains, are assessed to decipher the C–B–C chain's bending importance on the amorphization and mechanical properties of boron carbide.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 104108– Published 20 March, 2026
  • Received 25 September 2025
  • Revised 6 February 2026
  • Accepted 20 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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