Morphological evolution of boron carbide particles: Sol-gel synthesis of nano/micro B4C fibers

Abstract Herein we present a novel non-catalytic sol-gel route to synthesize nano/micro boron carbide fibers. By in-situ decoration of the precursor surface with boric acid crystals during the thermal decomposition stage, the growth kinetics of boron carbide particles was manipulated. Therefore, the formation of anisotropic crystals instead of polyhedral-equiaxed ones was successfully enabled. The results indicated that highly crystalline boron carbide (B4C) particles with a low amount (