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High-pressure chemistry of nitride-based materials

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heating <strong>of</strong> samples from a few hundred up to several thousand<br />

degrees while they are being held at high-<strong>pressure</strong>.<br />

Most experiments in solid state <strong>chemistry</strong> that lead to<br />

technologically useful <strong>materials</strong> are carried out under <strong>pressure</strong><br />

conditions close to ambient (P = 1 atm), using mainly variable<br />

temperatures combined with chemical composition to explore<br />

the range <strong>of</strong> available compounds and their properties. The use<br />

<strong>of</strong> high <strong>pressure</strong>s, combined with high temperatures and<br />

compositional variables, provides an opportunity to synthesize<br />

entirely new classes <strong>of</strong> <strong>materials</strong> and/or to tune their electronic,<br />

magnetic and structural properties for a wide range <strong>of</strong><br />

applications. Synthetic diamond and the cubic phase <strong>of</strong> boron<br />

<strong>nitride</strong>, c-BN, are the hardest known solids, were the first<br />

industrially synthesized high-<strong>pressure</strong> <strong>materials</strong> and are still in<br />

Welf Yurii Bronger Prots<br />

Welf Bronger studied <strong>chemistry</strong><br />

at the universities <strong>of</strong><br />

Innsbruck, Austria and<br />

Münster, Germany and gained<br />

his PhD in 1969 supervised by<br />

Wilhelm Klemm. After a short<br />

period working in industry for<br />

Degussa, he returned to the<br />

University <strong>of</strong> Münster as an<br />

assistant, where he received his<br />

Habilitation in 1966. In 1969<br />

he took up the chair <strong>of</strong><br />

Inorganic and Analytical<br />

Chemistry at the RWTH<br />

Aachen. Since his retirement<br />

in 1997, he has continued his<br />

research in collaboration with the Max-Planck-Institute for the<br />

Chemical Physics <strong>of</strong> Solids in Dresden. His main research<br />

interests are concerned with intermetallic phases, metal chalcogenides<br />

and metal hydrides, with special emphasis on structural<br />

studies and magneto<strong>chemistry</strong>.<br />

use today for a wide range <strong>of</strong> cutting and grinding applications.<br />

12 <strong>High</strong>-<strong>pressure</strong> and high-temperature research to<br />

improve the synthesis and processing methods for diamond<br />

and c-BN is still on-going, as are studies to establish new<br />

‘‘superhard’’ <strong>materials</strong> that have mechanical properties and<br />

chemical and thermal resistance comparable-with or superiorto<br />

those <strong>of</strong> diamond and c-BN phases. 13,14 New <strong>materials</strong><br />

explored and synthesized using high-<strong>pressure</strong> techniques<br />

include binary <strong>nitride</strong>s with spinel (Si 3 N 4 ,Ge 3 N 4 ) and thorium<br />

phosphate (Zr 3 N 4 , Hf 3 N 4 ) structures. The high-<strong>pressure</strong><br />

<strong>nitride</strong>s possess high hardness, and the new polymorphs<br />

<strong>of</strong> Si 3 N 4 and Ge 3 N 4 have a wide direct band gap between<br />

3.0–4 eV, comparable to the newly-developed UV/blue light<br />

emitting diode <strong>materials</strong> <strong>based</strong> on Al, Ga and In <strong>nitride</strong>. 15,16<br />

Most studies in <strong>materials</strong> <strong>chemistry</strong> and high-<strong>pressure</strong><br />

research have focused on oxides, which have provided the<br />

largest group <strong>of</strong> inorganic compounds leading to technologically<br />

important <strong>materials</strong>. Research on superhard <strong>materials</strong><br />

has centred around variations on the diamond theme, with<br />

exploration <strong>of</strong> new compounds in the B–C–N–O system, some<br />

<strong>of</strong> which have been discovered and are synthesised under high<strong>pressure</strong>,<br />

high-temperature conditions. There is another grand<br />

family <strong>of</strong> high hardness <strong>materials</strong> among the carbides and<br />

<strong>nitride</strong>s <strong>of</strong> transition metals, including WC, TiN, etc. These<br />

<strong>materials</strong> also provide metallic <strong>materials</strong> with useful electronic<br />

and magnetic properties, and can be superconducting, with<br />

high values <strong>of</strong> T c (NbN, MoN). The solid state <strong>chemistry</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>nitride</strong>s has been relatively neglected compared to that <strong>of</strong> oxide<br />

compounds, although there has been considerable activity in<br />

the area over the past two decades. 17–19 Many new <strong>nitride</strong><br />

compounds with novel physical and chemical properties have<br />

attracted attention as potential technological <strong>materials</strong>. For<br />

this reason, we focus in this review on the high-<strong>pressure</strong><br />

<strong>materials</strong> <strong>chemistry</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>nitride</strong>s and related phases, including<br />

<strong>nitride</strong>-imides, oxo<strong>nitride</strong>s and azo compounds. We present<br />

Rüdiger Welf Bronger Kniep<br />

Rüdiger Kniep has been the<br />

Director and a Scientific<br />

Member <strong>of</strong> the Max-Planck-<br />

Institute for the Chemical<br />

Physics <strong>of</strong> Solids in Dresden<br />

since 1998. He received<br />

Diploma degrees in <strong>chemistry</strong><br />

(1970) and mineralogy (1971)<br />

at Braunschweig Technical<br />

University, Germany. His dissertation<br />

work was done with<br />

Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Albrecht Rabenau at<br />

the Max-Planck-Institute for<br />

Solid State Research in<br />

Stuttgart (1973). After postdoctoral<br />

research and a pr<strong>of</strong>essorship<br />

(1979) at the University <strong>of</strong> Düsseldorf, Germany, he<br />

moved to Darmstadt Technical University (full pr<strong>of</strong>essorship<br />

1987, Eduard Zintl Institute). He is most widely known for his<br />

work on solid state <strong>chemistry</strong>, biomineralisation and structure–<br />

property relationships <strong>of</strong> solid <strong>materials</strong>.<br />

Peter Kroll currently holds a Heisenberg-fellowship <strong>of</strong> the<br />

German Science Foundation. He received his Diploma degree<br />

Rüdiger Peter Kroll Kniep<br />

in physics (1993) at Ruprecht-<br />

Karls-University Heidelberg<br />

with a thesis work in<br />

Theoretical Elementary<br />

Particle Physiscs. He moved<br />

to Darmstadt University <strong>of</strong><br />

Technology for his PhD, joining<br />

the group <strong>of</strong> Ralf Riedel in<br />

the Department <strong>of</strong> Materials<br />

Science. His dissertation from<br />

1996 was devoted to experimental<br />

characterization and<br />

structural modelling <strong>of</strong> amorphous<br />

silicon <strong>nitride</strong> ceramics.<br />

He did his post-doctoral<br />

research in the Department <strong>of</strong><br />

Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University together<br />

with Roald H<strong>of</strong>fmann until 1999, when he joined the Department<br />

<strong>of</strong> Inorganic Chemistry at RWTH Aachen. In 2005 he finished<br />

his habilitation in Inorganic Chemistry and received the venia<br />

legendi. He is eagerly pursuing a computational science approach<br />

to solid dstate <strong>chemistry</strong>: His interests include amorphous and<br />

nanostructured <strong>materials</strong> as well as high-<strong>pressure</strong> phase transformations<br />

and new compounds.<br />

This journal is ß The Royal Society <strong>of</strong> Chemistry 2006 Chem. Soc. Rev., 2006, 35, 987–1014 | 989

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