Abstract
The high-pressure behavior of silicon carbide (SiC), a hard, semi-conducting material commonly known for its many polytypic structures and refractory nature, has increasingly become the subject of current research. Through work done both experimentally and computationally, many interesting aspects of high-pressure SiC have been measured and explored. Considerable work has been done to measure the effect of pressure on the vibrational and material properties of SiC. Additionally, the transition from the low-pressure zinc-blende B3 structure to the high-pressure rocksalt B1 structure has been measured by several groups in both the diamond-anvil cell and shock communities and predicted in numerous computational studies. Finally, high-temperature studies have explored the thermal equation of state and thermal expansion of SiC, as well as the high-pressure and high-temperature melting behavior. From high-pressure phase transitions, phonon behavior, and melting characteristics, our increased knowledge of SiC is improving our understanding of its industrial uses, as well as opening up its application to other fields such as the Earth sciences.
Highlights
A hard and refractory semi-conductor, silicon carbide (SiC) is both a useful industrial material as well as an interesting component of naturally occurring systems
This review aims to summarize and discuss aspects of high-pressure work on SiC that aids in our understanding of both its industrial uses as well as its place in the natural world
We find that thermodynamic equilibrium is often difficult to attain in high P-T experiments on SiC, meaning that time-dependent kinetic effects and hysteresis are often observed across phase transitions and melting reactions
Summary
A hard and refractory semi-conductor, silicon carbide (SiC) is both a useful industrial material as well as an interesting component of naturally occurring systems. Known for its many polytypic structures appearing at ambient conditions, SiC is composed of stacked Si4 C (or SiC4 ) tetrahedra and is found in cubic, hexagonal or rhombohedral forms depending on the stacking sequence [1]. This review aims to summarize and discuss aspects of high-pressure work on SiC that aids in our understanding of both its industrial uses as well as its place in the natural world. We begin with a discussion of the high-pressure structure of SiC, including the stability of different polytypes. We present a discussion of the large body of work on the high-pressure phase transition in SiC, including observations and predictions of the transition conditions, predicted intermediate structures and transition mechanisms, as well as the kinetics across the transition. The observed sluggish kinetics of SiC can explain many of the discrepant findings between studies
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