Silicon carbide (SiC) composites are receiving much attention for structural use at high temperatures. One class of composites are those reinforced with SiC fibers. The SiC fibers are coated with boron nitride (BN) which is weakly bonded to the fiber. During fracture, the coating deflects cracks causing pull-out of the fibers (Fig. 1). This process of fiber pull-out consumes energy and increases the toughness of the composite. Although much work has been done on characterizing these materials by SEM, not much has been done using TEM due to difficulties in specimen preparation. The purpose of this study is to characterize these fibers and composites using conventional and analytical TEM.In this study, TEM specimens were prepared by dimpling and ion milling. Careful control of the preparation was needed to ensure the integrity of the SiC-BN interface. Figure 2a is a TEM image of the fiber showing delamination at the SiC-BN interface.
Comment on “Catastrophic degradation of the interface of epitaxial silicon carbide on silicon at high temperatures” [Appl. Phys. Lett. 109, 011604 (2016)]