Abstract
The compressibility and pressure-induced phase transition of β-Si3N4 were investigated by using an angle dispersive x-ray diffraction technique in a diamond anvil cell at room temperature. Rietveld refinements of the x-ray powder diffraction data verified that the hexagonal structure (with space group P63/m, Z = 2 formulas per unit cell) β-Si3N4 remained stable under high pressure up to 37 GPa. Upon increasing pressure, β-Si3N4 transformed to δ-Si3N4 at about 41 GPa. The initial β-Si3N4 was recovered as the pressure was released to ambient pressure, implying that the observed pressure-induced phase transformation was reversible. The pressure–volume data of β-Si3N4 was fitted by the third-order Birch–Murnaghan equation of state, which yielded a bulk modulus K0 = 273(2) GPa with its pressure derivative (fixed) and K0 = 278(2) GPa with . Furthermore, the compressibility of the unit cell axes (a and c-axes) for the β-Si3N4 demonstrated an anisotropic property with increasing pressure.
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