Phase transformation during silica cluster impact on crystal silicon substrate studied by molecular dynamics simulation

Abstract

The process of a silica cluster impact on a crystal silicon substrate is studied by molecular dynamics simulation. At the impact loading stage, crystal silicon of the impact zone transforms to a locally ordered molten with increasing the local temperature and pressure of the impact zone. And then the transient molten forms amorphous silicon directly as the local temperature and pressure decrease at the impact unloading stage. Moreover, the phase behavior between the locally ordered molten and amorphous silicon exhibits the reversible structural transition. The transient molten contains not only lots of four-fold atom but also many three- and five-fold atoms. And the five-fold atom is similar to the mixture structure of semi-Si-II and semi-bct5-Si. The structure transformation between five- and four-fold atoms is affected by both pressure and temperature. The structure transformation between three- and four-fold atoms is affected mostly by temperature. The direct structure transformation between five- and three-fold atoms is not observed. Finally, these five- and three-fold atoms are also different from the usual five- and three-fold deficient atoms of amorphous silicon. In addition, according to the change of coordination number of atoms the impact process is divided into six stages: elastic, plastic, hysteresis, phase regressive, adhesion and cooling stages.