Growth mechanism of dumbbell-shaped biomimetic SiC whiskers

The growth mechanism of dumbbell-shaped SiC whiskers was proposed according to the results of direct and indirect experiments. The direct experiment was designed to change the reaction time from 10 min to 4 hrs, and in the indirect experiments the commercial SiC and K2O&middot6TiO2 whiskers were used to investigate whether beads grow on their surface or not. It was found that the growth of the SiC whiskers and beads composing the biomimetic SiC whiskers were independent. First the whiskers grew up in the furnace, then the amorphous materials composed of Si, SiO and SiO2 began to deposit on the stacking faults of the grown whiskers and form beads encircled the whiskers. Moreover, the beads also can be formed on the commercial SiC and K2O&middot6TiO2 whiskers.