Ultrastrong, elastic, and fatigue-resistant SiC nanowires network

Light, strong, and elastic ceramics are of great interest for widespread engineering applications but it is always been a challenge to design and fabricate such materials for the conflict that lightweight structure usually requires high porosity while high porosity often leads to low strength. Here, we report a lightweight (90.9% porosity) and ultra-strong SiC nanowires network (SiC NN) constructed by highly inter-bonded nanowires in a layered distribution through a facile way. The resulting lamellar SiC NN (L-SiC NN) exhibits a nearly complete compressive resilience from 20% strain while showing significantly high compressive stress (5.7 MPa). In particular, the L-SiC NN shows high storage modulus (12.3 MPa), small damping ratio (0.046), frequency invariant from 20 to 100 Hz, and fatigue resistance up to 100 000 compression-release cycles. In addition, the L-SiC NN possesses high-temperature stability up to 1100°C in air and low thermal conductivity of 0.121 W m^-1 k^-1. These integrated features make the L-SiC NN an attractive substitute for thermal insulators and mechanical energy storage in a harsh environment.