Alternate mechanism for the spontaneous formation of freestanding Ga nanoribbons on Cr2GaC surfaces

Herein we propose an alternate simpler mechanism for a new phenomenon we reported recently in this journal [Z.M. Sun, S. Gupta, H. Ye, and M.W. Barsoum, J. Mater. Res. 20, 2618 (2005)]. The presence of freestanding Ga nanoribbons on Cr2GaC surfaces were found to be the leftover skins of Ga whiskers or spheres that were reabsorbed into the Cr2GaC grain boundaries, most likely as a result of their melting.