Sciencemadness Discussion Board

hafnium carbide for rocket nozzles

Vdara - 28-9-2008 at 06:37

highest damn melting point for a two-element cpd; like 7000 degrees. newest nozzles are called STERN for "expansion deflection", also need how to go from some gallium I could buy, to the Ga-In-As solar cell film, which is the best, like 37% efficient, and this is all just to see what type of laboratory is required to do anything, anything being to cause the elements to combine into the right stoichiometry or alloy or crystal structure, like, is this a furnace or a torch job?

Mr. Wizard - 28-9-2008 at 06:55

Was there a complete sentence or coherent thought in that whole post?

not_important - 28-9-2008 at 07:26

If you are talking about the triple-junction wideband photovoltaics, they are multiple layers (typically 8 to 11) based on gallium indium phosphide, gallium arsenide, and germanium; all in high purity of 99.99% to 99.99999%, and require the carefully controlled evaporation of their component elements or compounds to form the various layers.

There's also the four junction variant indium gallium arsenide nitride cells, built using MOCVD methods, and even tricker to build.

There is also fairly recent work using multiple layers of gallium-indium-nitride mixes. These are even fussier in their fabrication, using molecular beam epitaxy and very high purity materials.

A on-line search for indium gallium supplier will lead to sources for them. The needed equipment might be had used for as little as 50 to 100 million yen, if you're willing to do a lot of work yourself in getting it set up.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/printable_versions/solar_c...

http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/121102/Material_soaks_up_...

As for the hafnium carbide, I believe that it is applied using a plasma spray method for coatings and hot pressing for bulk forms.



[Edited on 28-9-2008 by not_important]