Quantum design and synthesis of a boron-oxygen-yttrium phase

Ab initio calculations are used to design a crystalline boron–oxygen–yttrium (BOY) phase. The essential constituent is yttrium substituting for oxygen in the boron suboxide structure (BO0.17) with Y/B and O/B ratios of 0.07. The calculations predict that the BOY phase is 0.36 eV/atom more stable than crystalline BO0.17 and experiments confirm the formation of crystalline thin films. The BOY phase was synthesized with reactive rf magnetron sputtering and identified with x-ray and selected area electron diffraction. Films with Y/B ratios ranging from 0.10 to 0.32, as determined via elastic recoil detection analysis, were grown over a wide range of temperatures (300–600 °C) and found to withstand 1000 °C.