Formation of Silicon Nitride: From the 19th to the 21st Century

Description

The elements: Si, N, O, C and H, have strong chemical affinities for one another. Under the correct conditions, Si-N bonding will occur in almost any Si-N-(O/C/H), and many related, reaction systems; although Si-O and Si-C are formidable competitors to Si-N. The most favored Si-N compound is stoichiometric Si3N4. It comes in three common varieties: amorphous a-Si3N4 and crystalline [alpha]-Si3N4 or [beta]-Si3N4. How they interrelate, how one finds them and (above all) how one makes them - and how sometimes they just happen to form - are the subjects of this book, with due attention being paid to closely related matters. This book summarizes and integrates every report in the world-wide literature, between 1857 and mid-2004, concerning what is known about the formation of silicon nitride - Si3N4 - and its close relatives. The term, "formation", is interpreted very broadly here; ranging in meaning from traces in meteorites to large-scale manufacturing. Some 4242 source documents are cited, plus Internet sources and "Gmelin Handbook" volumes. This book effectively subsumes the "Gmelin Handbook Silicon Nitride" series, but is free-standing, complete within itself, and with its own style, organization and scope. This book is the key to all that has been learned, over the past 150 years, about how silicon nitride comes to exist: in nature, in the laboratory or in the factory and in many reaction systems; together with how it is used in ceramics, electronic films, optical coatings and many other ways (including an introduction to closely related substances). It will aid the researcher in designing new projects, the supervisor in briefing new employees, the salesman in working with new customers, the patent attorney in assessing patents and the professor in designing graduate course assignments.