The physical and mechanical properties of hafnium orthosilicate: experiments and first-principles calculations Zhidong Ding1, Mackenzie Ridley2, Jeroen Deijkers2, Naiming Liu2, Md Shafkat Bin Hoque1, John Gaskins1, Mona Zebarjadi2,3, Patrick Hopkins1,2,4, Haydn Wadley1,2, Elizabeth Opila1,2, Keivan Esfarjani1,2,4,* 1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA 2Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA 3Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA 4Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA * Corresponding author. E-mail address:
[email protected] (K. E.) Abstract Hafnium orthosilicate (HfSiO4: hafnon) has been proposed as an environmental barrier coating (EBC) material to protect silicon coated, silicon-based ceramic materials at high temperatures and as a candidate dielectric material in microelectronic devices. It can naturally form at the interface between silicon dioxide (SiO2) and hafnia (HfO2). When used in these applications, its coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) should match that of silicon and SiC composites to reduce the stored elastic strain energy, and thus risk of failure of these systems. The physical, mechanical, thermodynamic and thermal transport properties of hafnon have been investigated using a combination of both density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental assessments. The average linear coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) calculated using the quasi-harmonic approximation increase from 3.06×10-6 K-1 to 6.36×10-6 K-1, as the temperature increases from 300 to 1500 K, in agreement with both X-ray diffraction lattice parameter and dilatometry measurements.