Effect of shock compression on single crystalline silicon

Abstract

A series of shock-recovery experiments were performed on single crystals of silicon and germanium using a propellant gun and the laser-driven miniflyer method. Characterizations of the recovered samples by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and Raman spectroscopy revealed the absence of additional constituents such as metastable phases and high-pressure phases. The XRD patterns for shocked samples are consistent with a powder XRD pattern corresponding to the cubic-diamond phase. The formation of copper silicide (Cu3Si) was confirmed in the sample shocked at 38 GPa. The formation of an additional band and the deviation of a center frequency peak from the cubic-diamond phase of silicon and germanium were evident in the Raman spectroscopy results. The results of XRD and Raman spectroscopy indicated that crystalline size reduction, rather than the formation of metastable phases, occurred.