Abstract
The elastic properties of a biocompatible silk film were investigated under temperature and pressure variations by using Brillouin spectroscopy. The Brillouin frequency shift decreased monotonically upon heating and showed a sudden change at the glass transition temperature. The existence of water molecules in the film increased the longitudinal modulus by approximately 10% and induced a relaxation peak in the hypersonic damping at ~60 ◦ C. The pressure dependences of the sound velocities of the longitudinal and the transverse acoustic modes and the refractive index were determined for the first time at pressures up to ~15.5 GPa. All these properties increased upon compression; these changes indicated that the free volume in the silk film collapsed at a pressure of about 3 GPa.
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