XPS study of the cBN-TiC system

Sintered cubic boron nitride is widely used in various industrial applicati ons because of its extreme wear and corrosion resistance, thermal and elect rical properties. In order to obtain composite materials with these optimal properties it is important to elucidate whether chemical reactions occur a t boron nitride/bonding phase interfaces, Some of these systems were then s ubjected to physical and thermal alteration This paper summarizes theoretic al and experimental studies on the cBN-TiC 1:1 molar ratio. From theoretica l calculations it follows that TiC reacts with boron nitride forming two ne w phases, TiB2 and TiN. Experimentally CBN-TiC composites were prepared by hot pressing, and the samples were subsequently heat treated. The samples w ere characterized after heat treatment using transmission electron microsco py and X-ray diffraction. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd and Techna S.r.l. A ll rights reserved.