What is the difference between cubic boron nitride and diamond?

Cubic boron nitride has the same structure as diamond, which is a compound lattice composed of two face-centered cubic lattices staggered along the diagonal of the cube by 1/4 of the length. The difference between the two is that the atoms on the two face-centered cubic lattices in the diamond structure are the same kind of atoms, while the atoms on the two face-centered cubic lattices in the cubic boron nitride structure are two different atom.

Cubic boron nitride, like diamond, is a multifunctional material with many superior properties. Since the structure of cubic boron nitride is similar to diamond, many of its physical properties are also very similar to diamond, such as high hardness (second only to diamond), wide band gap, high resistivity, high thermal stability and chemical Stability, etc., which also makes cubic boron nitride have a wide range of uses.

On the other hand, some properties of cubic boron nitride are better than diamond, mainly in the following aspects:

(1) The oxidation resistance of cubic boron nitride is significantly higher than that of diamond.

(2) Cubic boron nitride is highly inert to iron group elements, and there will be no chip sticking when processing iron alloys. This advantage makes cubic boron nitride have obvious advantages when used as high-speed cutting tools.

(3) In the development of electronic and optoelectronic devices, cubic boron nitride also has incomparable advantages over diamond: by controlling the doping type, cubic boron nitride can become both an n-type semiconductor and a p-type semiconductor, but diamond generally Can only be doped into n-type semiconductors.

(4) Cubic boron nitride is also an ideal substrate material for growing some semiconductors, which can improve the performance of short-wavelength light-emitting devices and meet the needs of the semiconductor optoelectronic device industry.