While quartz (SiO2) ampule sealing is commonly used in laboratories to prevent sample oxidation during synthesis, its application is limited for reactions involving highly reactive elements such as alkali, alkaline-earth, and rare-earth metals. These elements can react with SiO2 at elevated temperatures, causing compositional loss, tube failure, and experimental inconsistencies. Here, we introduce an inexpensive boron nitride (BN) cap sealing technique. This approach is readily adaptable to centrifugal separation and flux transport growth and yields superior sample quality. We demonstrate its efficacy by growing KFe2As2 and CsCr6Sb6 single crystals, the former exhibiting record-high quality, with a residual resistivity ratio (RRR) exceeding 2500, and the latter achieving significantly larger crystal dimensions than other methods. This accessible and economical method promises to accelerate the discovery of novel materials that contain reactive elements.
Song et al. (Thu,) studied this question.