One of the major purposes in the present work is to study the high temperature sulfidation properties of Nb in severe sulfidizing environments. Kinetically, the sulfidation rate of Nb is satisfactorily slow, but the microstructures and non-stoichiometry of Nb1+αS2 challenge conventional oxidation/sulfidation theory and defect models of non-stoichiometric compounds. This challenge reflects our limited knowledge of the dependence of kinetics and atomic migration processes in solid state materials on their defect structures.Figure 1 shows a high resolution image of a platelet from the middle portion of the Nb1+αS2 scale. A thin lamellar heterogeneity (about 5nm) is observed. From X-ray diffraction results, we have shown that Nb1+αS2 scale is principally rhombohedral structure, but 2H-NbS2 can result locally due to stacking faults, because the only difference between these 2H and 3R phases is variation in the stacking sequence along the c axis. Following an ABC notation, we use capital letters A, B and C to represent the sulfur layer, and lower case letters a, b and c to refer to Nb layers. For example, the stacking sequence of 2H phase is AbACbCA, which is a ∼12Å period along the c axis; the stacking sequence of 3R phase is AbABcBCaCA to form an ∼18Å period along the c axis. Intergrowth of these two phases can take place at stacking faults or by a shear in the basal plane normal to the c axis.
