Polyamorphic Transformations Research Articles

Molecular-Network Transformations in Tetra-Arsenic Triselenide Glassy Alloys Tuned within Nanomilling Platform.

Polyamorphic transformations driven by high-energy mechanical ball milling (nanomilling) are recognized in a melt-quenched glassy alloy of tetra-arsenic triselenide (As4Se3). We employed XRPD analysis complemented by thermophysical heat-transfer and micro-Raman spectroscopy studies. A straightforward interpretation of the medium-range structural response to milling-driven reamorphization is developed within a modified microcrystalline model by treating diffuse peak-halos in the XRPD patterns of this alloy as a superposition of the Bragg-diffraction contribution from inter-planar correlations, which are supplemented by the Ehrenfest-diffraction contribution from inter-atomic and/or inter-molecular correlations related to derivatives of thioarsenide As4Sen molecules, mainly dimorphite-type As4Se3 ones. These cage molecules are merely destroyed under milling, facilitating the formation of a polymerized network with enhanced calorimetric heat-transfer responses. Disruption of intermediate-range ordering, due to weakening of the FSDP (the first sharp diffraction peak), accompanied by an enhancement of extended-range ordering, due to fragmentation of structural entities responsible for the SSDP (the second sharp diffraction peak), occurs as an interplay between medium-range structural levels in the reamorphized As4Se3 glass alloy. Nanomilling-driven destruction of thioarsenide As4Sen molecules followed by incorporation of their remnants into a glassy network is proved by micro-Raman spectroscopy. Microstructure scenarios of the molecular-to-network polyamorphic transformations caused by the decomposition of the As4Se3 molecules and their direct destruction under grinding are recognized by an ab initio quantum-chemical cluster-modeling algorithm.

Amorphous GaN: Polyamorphism and crystallization at high pressure

Employing constant pressure ab initio simulations, we have shed light on the previously unknown high-pressure behavior of amorphous gallium nitride. Our findings reveal a two-step transformation sequence under pressure. The initial transition involves a polyamorphic transformation from a low-density amorphous (LDA) phase to a high-density amorphous (HDA) phase with an average coordination number of 5.4. Upon pressure release, the HDA state partially reverts to a denser amorphous network with a higher coordination number (4.34) compared to the original LDA phase. Further pressurization triggers the crystallization of the HDA state into a rocksalt structure. Remarkably, the electronic structure of the amorphous forms of GaN exhibits insignificant sensitivity to changes in coordination number, maintaining a band gap of approximately 1.7–2.0 eV across all phases.

Compressibility, Metallization, and Relaxation in Nonstoichiometric Chalcogenide Glass g-As3Te2 at High Hydrostatic Pressure versus “Classic” g-As2Te3 Glass

The volume and conductivity of nonstoichiometric chalcogenide glass g-As3Te2 have been investigated at high hydrostatic pressures (up to 8.5 GPa), and results have been compared with earlier data for stoichiometric chalcogenide glass g-As2Te3. Structural and Raman studies of g-As3Te2 glass have revealed a greater significance of As–As pair correlations in the range of medium-range order compared with “classic” chalcogenide glass g-As2Te3. Even at such a large excess of arsenic, a high concentration of “improper” Te–Te neighbors has been observed because of chemical disorder. Under normal conditions, the thermal gap (0.43–0.48 eV) and resistivity (104 Ω cm) of glass g-As3Te2 are greater than those of g-As2Te3. The elastic behavior of g-As3Te2 glass, as well as of g-As2Te3, under compression has been observed at pressures up to 1 GPa, the initial values of bulk moduli for these glasses being nearly coincident. Polyamorphic transformation in g-As3Te2 (with softening of relaxing bulk modulus) is more diffuse and extends to higher pressures (from 1.5 to 4.0 GPa). The metallization process in g-As3Te2 is also more diffuse: metallic conductivity is reached at pressures of 5.5–6.0 GPa. As in the case of the stoichiometric glass, the baric dependences of the bulk modulus exhibit a kink in the pressure range 4–5 GPa. Up to maximal pressures, the volume and resistivity relax logarithmically in time with roughly the same rate as in the case of g-As2Te3. The residual densification of g-As3Te2 after pressure release is roughly twice as high as for g-As2Te3 and equals 3.5%, the conductivity of the compacted glass is about three orders of magnitude higher than that of the as-prepared sample. Under normal conditions, a considerable relaxation of the volume and resistivity has been observed. As for densified g-GeS2 glass, the logarithmic kinetics of this relaxation has been successfully described in terms of our earlier model based on the concept of relaxation self-organized criticality with the activation energy (1.3 eV) remaining unchanged up to 5 × 106 s.

Kinetics and Mechanisms of Pressure-Induced Ice Amorphization and Polyamorphic Transitions in a Machine-Learned Coarse-Grained Water Model.

Water glasses have attracted considerable attention due to their potential connection to a liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water. Here we use molecular simulations to investigate the formation and phase behavior of water glasses using the machine-learned bond-order parameter (ML-BOP) water model. We produce glasses through hyperquenching of water, pressure-induced amorphization (PIA) of ice, and pressure-induced polyamorphic transformations. We find that PIA of polycrystalline ice occurs at a lower pressure than that of monocrystalline ice and through a different mechanism. The temperature dependence of the amorphization pressure of polycrystalline ice for ML-BOP agrees with that in experiments. We also find that ML-BOP accurately reproduces the density, coordination number, and structural features of low-density (LDA), high-density (HDA), and very high-density (VHDA) amorphous water glasses. ML-BOP accurately reproduces the experimental radial distribution function of LDA but overpredicts the minimum between the first two shells in high-density glasses. We examine the kinetics and mechanism of the transformation between low-density and high-density glasses and find that the sharp nature of these transitions in ML-BOP is similar to that in experiments and all-atom water models with a liquid-liquid transition. Transitions between ML-BOP glasses occur through a spinodal-like mechanism, similar to ice crystallization from LDA. Both glass-to-glass and glass-to-ice transformations have Avrami-Kolmogorov kinetics with exponent n = 1.5 ± 0.2 in experiments and simulations. Importantly, ML-BOP reproduces the competition between crystallization and HDA→LDA transition above the glass transition temperature Tg, and separation of their time scales below Tg, observed also in experiments. These findings demonstrate the ability of ML-BOP to accurately reproduce water properties across various regimes, making it a promising model for addressing the competition between polyamorphic transitions and crystallization in water and solutions.

Study of polyamorphic transformations in the cryomatrix of nitrogen in cryovacuum condensates of water

One of the important tasks of modern physics of condensed matter is to establish an unambiguous connection between the conditions of formation and the properties of the resulting solid phase. Its solution will contribute to major breakthroughs in the creation of materials with desired properties. As any scientific and technological problem, this approach is associated with the need to address a wide range of fundamental issues. The basis for success in this direction is the implementation of a complex not only with model tests, when the investigated substance is important from a practical point of view, but in itself has interesting physical properties; such objects can be fully attributed to chemical properties. Hydrogen-bonded substances, in which, in addition to van der Waals forces, interactions due to the presence of an intermolecular hydrogen bond play an important role. The obtained method of cryomatrix isolation facilitates assuming that in the process of cryocondensation of pure components of water and ethanol at an intermediate stage in the adsorbed layer, there is a process of formation of clusters with a short-range order similar to the liquid state of water or ethanol.

Unravelling the mechanism of pressure induced polyamorphic transition in an inorganic molecular glass

The atomic structure of a germanium doped phosphorous selenide glass of composition Ge2.8P57.7Se39.5 is determined as a function of pressure from ambient to 24 GPa using Monte-Carlo simulations constrained by high energy x-ray scattering data. The ambient pressure structure consists primarily of P4Se3 molecules and planar edge shared phosphorus rings, reminiscent of those found in red phosphorous as well as a small fraction of locally clustered corner-sharing GeSe4 tetrahedra. This low-density amorphous phase transforms into a high-density amorphous phase at ~6.3 GPa. The high-pressure phase is characterized by an extended network structure. The polyamorphic transformation between these two phases involves opening of the P3 ring at the base of the P4Se3 molecules and subsequent reaction with red phosphorus type moieties to produce a cross linked structure. The compression mechanism of the low-density phase involves increased molecular packing, whereas that of the high pressure phase involves an increase in the nearest-neighbor coordination number while the bond angle distributions broaden and shift to smaller angles. The entropy and volume changes associated with this polyamorphic transformation are positive and negative, respectively, and consequently the corresponding Clapeyron slope for this transition would be negative. This result has far reaching implications in our current understanding of the thermodynamics of polyamorphic transitions in glasses and glass-forming liquids.

Nature of polyamorphic transformations in H2O under isothermal compression and decompression

We report polyamorphic transformations of ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}\mathrm{O}$ under isothermal compression and decompression at 150 K, observed by in situ x-ray diffraction. Detailed structural information across the transformations among low-, high-, and very-high-density amorphs (LDA, HDA, and VHDA) reveals the mechanisms, the reversibility, and (dis)continuity of the transformations. During isothermal (de)compression, the polyamorphic transformations are characterized by a sharp and reversible LDA-VHDA transformation, with an HDA-like form (referred to as HDA\ensuremath{'}) appearing as an intermediate state. The LDA-VHDA transformation is found to occur in two steps: a discontinuous transition between LDA and the end member of HDA\ensuremath{'} on the low-pressure side, followed by a continuous change within HDA\ensuremath{'} involving structural reconfigurations and finally converging to VHDA. Both LDA and VHDA are found to be structurally stable showing mainly elastic behavior under (de)compression, while HDA\ensuremath{'} is structurally unstable. Possible relations of these observations to low- and high-density liquids are discussed.

In situ x-ray diffraction study of polyamorphism in H2O under isothermal compression and decompression.

Amorphous-amorphous transformations in H2O have been studied under rapid isothermal compression and decompression in a diamond anvil cell together with in situ x-ray diffraction measurements using brilliant synchrotron radiation. The experimental pathways provide a density-driven approach for studying polyamorphic relations among low-, high-, and very high-density amorphs (LDA, HDA, VHDA) in a pressure range of 0-3.5 GPa at temperatures of 145-160 K. Our approach using rapid (de)compression allows for studying the polyamorphic transformations at higher temperatures than the conditions previously studied under slow (de)compression or isobaric annealing. Multiple compression-decompression cycles can be integrated with in situ x-ray measurements, thus facilitating the study of repeatability and reversibility of the polyamorphic transformations. Fast in situ x-ray diffraction measurements allow for obtaining detailed insight into the structural changes across polyamorphic transformations regarding the (dis)continuity, reversibility, and possible intermediate forms. As demonstrated at isothermal conditions of 145 K and 155 K, the polyamorphic transformations are characterized by a sharp and reversible LDA-VHDA transformation, with an HDA-like form (referred to as HDA') appearing as an intermediate state. The LDA-VHDA transformation is found to occur in two steps: a discontinuous transition between LDA and HDA' and a continuous change within HDA' involving structural reconfigurations and finally converging to VHDA.

Metastable States in Pressurized Bulk and Mesoporous Germanium

Combination of porosity and hydrostaticity during compression is used with a view to explore the energy landscape of germanium. In this work, pressure-induced phase transformations in mesoporous crystalline Ge has been investigated by in situ Raman spectroscopy. A pressure-induced amorphization to a low-density amorphous (LDA) state was observed prior to a reversible polyamorphic transformation between LDA and high-density amorphous states. These pressure-induced transformations show some similarities with the behavior previously reported in nanoparticles. Thermodynamics models developed in the case of nanoparticles are successfully used indicating that, in both cases, the large surface-to-volume ratio leads to an increase of the system energy and that mesoporous materials may be considered as the negative image of a collection of nanoparticles. However, an inhomogeneous stress distribution is expected in porous materials because of it being a network with hyperbolic geometry. A control experiment is presented using a reference bulk germanium sample. The diamond-to-β-tin transformation is observed starting at around 8.0 GPa. On decompression, the metastable ST12 (Ge-III) phase is observed. Ab initio simulations are used to assign and interpret Raman spectra of this phase.

Experimental study of the polyamorphism of water. I. The isobaric transitions from amorphous ices to LDA at 4 MPa.

The existence of more than one solid amorphous state of water is an extraordinary feature. Since polyamorphism might be connected to the liquid-liquid critical point hypothesis, it is particularly important to study the relations amongst the different amorphous ices. Here we study the polyamorphic transformations of several high pressure amorphous ices to low-density amorphous ice (LDA) at 4 MPa by isobaric heating utilising in situ volumetry and ex situ X-ray diffraction. We find that very-high density amorphous ice (VHDA) and unannealed high density amorphous ice (HDA) show significant relaxation before transforming to LDA, whereby VHDA is seen to relax toward HDA. By contrast, expanded HDA shows almost no relaxation prior to the transformation. The transition to LDA itself obeys criteria for a first-order-like transition in all cases. In the case of VHDA, even macroscopic phase separation is observed. These findings suggest that HDA and LDA are two clearly distinct polyamorphs. We further present evidence that HDA reaches the metastable equilibrium at 140 K and 0.1 GPa but only comes close to that at 140 K and 0.2 GPa. The most important is the path independence of the amorphous phase reached at 140 K and 0.1 GPa.

High-precision measurements of the compressibility and the electrical resistivity of bulk g-As2Te3 glasses at a hydrostatic pressure up to 8.5 GPa

High-precision studies of the volume and the electrical resistivity of g-As2Te3 glasses at a high hydrostatic pressure up to 8.5 GPa at room temperature are performed. The glasses exhibit elastic behavior in compression only at a pressure up to 1 GPa, and a diffuse structural transformation and inelastic density relaxation (logarithmic in time) begin at higher pressures. When the pressure increases further, the relaxation rate passes through a sharp maximum at 2.5 GPa, which is accompanied by softening the relaxing bulk modulus, and then decreases, being noticeable up to the maximum pressure. When pressure is relieved, an unusual inflection point is observed in the baric dependence of the bulk modulus near 4 GPa. The polyamorphic transformation is only partly reversible and the residual densification after pressure release is 2%. In compression, the electrical resistivity of the g-As2Te3 glasses decreases exponentially with increasing pressure (at a pressure up to 2 GPa); then, it decreases faster by almost three orders of magnitude in the pressure range 2–3.5 GPa. At a pressure of 5 GPa, the electrical resistivity reaches 10–3 Ω cm, which is characteristic of a metallic state; this resistivity continues to decrease with increasing pressure and reaches 1.7 × 10–4 Ω cm at 8.1 GPa. The reverse metal–semiconductor transition occurs at a pressure of 3 GPa when pressure is relieved. When the pressure is decreased to atmospheric pressure, the electrical resistivity of the glasses is below the initial pressure by two–three orders of magnitude. Under normal conditions, both the volume and the electrical resistivity relax to quasi-equilibrium values in several months. Comparative structural and Raman spectroscopy investigations demonstrate that the glasses subjected to high pressure have the maximum chemical order. The glasses with a higher order have a lower electrical resistivity. The polyamorphism in the As2Te3 glasses is caused by both structural changes and chemical ordering. The g-As2Te3 compound is the first example of glasses, where the reversible metallization under pressure has been studied under hydrostatic conditions.

Pressure‐induced polyamorphism in lanthanide‐solute metallic glasses

The electronic structure inheritance of lanthanide‐solvent atoms in lanthanide‐based metallic glasses has been proposed. Is a polyamorphism possible in lanthanide‐solute metallic glasses? So far, polyamorphic phase transitions in metallic glass containing lanthanide have been observed only in lanthanide‐solvent metallic glasses. Here, a pressure‐induced transition between two distinct amorphous states, accompanied by a 7% volume collapse at ambient pressure, was observed in La43.4Pr18.6Al14Cu24 metallic glass, with low lanthanide content, by using in situ X‐ray total scattering method. The transformation also indicated by changes in short range and medium range order. Thus, it is proposed that the lanthanide‐solute metallic glasses also inherit 4f electronic transition from pure lanthanide element in polyamorphic transition. This discovery offers a supplement to research on lanthanide‐based metallic glasses, which further provides a new perspective of the polyamorphic transformation in metallic glasses containing lanthanide element.

Polyamorphism in Yb-based metallic glass induced by pressure

The Yb62.5Zn15Mg17.5Cu5 metallic glass is investigated using synchrotron x-ray total scattering method up to 38.4 GPa. The polyamorphic transformation from low density to high density with a transition region between 14.1 and 25.2 GPa is observed, accompanying with a volume collapse reflected by a discontinuousness of isothermal bulk modulus. This collapse is caused by that distortional icosahedron short range order precedes to perfect icosahedron, which might link to Yb 4f electron delocalization upon compression, and match the result of in situ electrical resistance measurement under high pressure conditions. This discovery in Yb-based metallic glass, combined with the previous reports on other metallic glass systems, demonstrates that pressure induced polyamorphism is the general behavior for typical lanthanide based metallic glasses.

Hierarchical densification and negative thermal expansion in Ce-based metallic glass under high pressure.

The polyamorphsim in amorphous materials is one of the most fascinating topics in condensed matter physics. In amorphous metals, the nature of polyamorphic transformation is poorly understood. Here we investigate the structural evolution of a Ce-based metallic glass (MG) with pressure at room temperature (RT) and near the glass transition temperature by synchrotron X-ray diffraction, uncovering novel behaviours. The MG shows hierarchical densification processes at both temperatures, arising from the hierarchy of interatomic interactions. In contrast with a continuous and smooth process for the low- to medium-density amorphous state transformation at RT, a relatively abrupt and discontinuous transformation around 5.5 GPa is observed at 390 K, suggesting a possible weak first-order nature. Furthermore, both positive and abnormal-negative thermal expansion behaviours on medium-range order are observed in different pressure windows, which could be related to the low-energy vibrational motions and relaxation of the weakly linked solute-centred clusters.

Simulations of nanocrystals under pressure: Combining electronic enthalpy and linear-scaling density-functional theory

We present an implementation in a linear-scaling density-functional theory code of an electronic enthalpy method, which has been found to be natural and efficient for the ab initio calculation of finite systems under hydrostatic pressure. Based on a definition of the system volume as that enclosed within an electronic density isosurface [M. Cococcioni, F. Mauri, G. Ceder, and N. Marzari, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 145501 (2005)], it supports both geometry optimizations and molecular dynamics simulations. We introduce an approach for calibrating the parameters defining the volume in the context of geometry optimizations and discuss their significance. Results in good agreement with simulations using explicit solvents are obtained, validating our approach. Size-dependent pressure-induced structural transformations and variations in the energy gap of hydrogenated silicon nanocrystals are investigated, including one comparable in size to recent experiments. A detailed analysis of the polyamorphic transformations reveals three types of amorphous structures and their persistence on depressurization is assessed.

Polyamorphic Amorphous Silicon at High Pressure: Raman and Spatially Resolved X-ray Scattering and Molecular Dynamics Studies

We studied the low-frequency Raman and X-ray scattering behavior of amorphous silicon (a-Si) at high pressure throughout the range where the density-driven polyamorphic transformation between the low-density amorphous (LDA) semiconductor and a novel metallic high-density amorphous (HDA) polyamorph occurs. The experimental data were analyzed with the aid of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using the Stillinger-Weber potential. The heat capacity of a-Si obtained from the low pressure Raman data exhibits non Debye-like behavior, but the effect is small, and our data support the conclusion that no boson peak is present. The high-pressure Raman data show the presence of a distinct low frequency band for the HDA polyamorph in agreement with ab initio MD simulations. Spatially resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction was used to study the high pressure behavior of the a-Si sample throughout the LDA-HDA transition range without interference by crystallization events. The X-ray data were analyzed using an iterative refinement strategy to extract real-space structural information. The appearance of the first diffraction peak (FDP) in the scattering function S(Q) is discussed in terms of the void structure determined from Voronoi analysis of the MD simulation data.

Pressure-induced polyamorphism inTiO2nanoparticles

Two different nanometric (6 nm) ${\text{TiO}}_{2}$ compounds, anatase polycrystals and amorphous particles, were investigated under high pressure using Raman spectroscopy. Nanoanatase undergoes a pressure-induced amorphization. The pressure-induced transformations of this mechanically prepared amorphous state are compared with those of a chemically prepared amorphous particles. In the mechanically prepared amorphous state, a reversible transformation from a low-density amorphous state to high-density amorphous state (HDA1) is observed in the range 13--16 GPa. In the chemically prepared sample, a transformation to a new high-density amorphous state (HDA2) is observed at around 21 GPa. Further compression leads to the transformation $\text{HDA}2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\text{HDA}1$ at $\ensuremath{\sim}30\text{ }\text{GPa}$. We demonstrate that depending on the starting amorphous material, the high-pressure polyamorphic transformations may differ. This observation indicates that pressure is a suited tool to discriminate between nanomaterials apparently similar at ambient conditions.

Composition and polyamorphism in supercooled yttria–alumina melts

By extending recent work on liquid–liquid transitions in supercooled yttria–alumina AYx liquids we draw attention to the compositional dependence of the structure factor of the high density liquid, arguing that this is sufficiently sensitive to discriminate between liquids at the level of a few %. Comparing structure factor differences between liquids of different compositions and in the same liquid AY20 between high and low temperatures straddling the transition at 1788 K between a high density liquid (HDL) and a low density liquid (LDL) enables compositional phase separation to be ruled out. It points instead to kinetic changes in polyhedral configurational order being the drivers for this polyamorphic transformation. Rotor behaviour observed in levitated liquid drops used in the high temperature experiments enables the reversibility of the LLT transition (LLT) and the associated changes in entropy and density to be identified. Evidence for critical-like behaviour in the structural relaxation time and in the fluctuation correlation length is presented. By re-examining recent work which failed to find the structural and thermal signatures for the LLT in liquid AY20 at 1788 K we present evidence for the LLT occurring instead in liquid AY15 at 1940 K, suggesting that the liquid-liquid transition temperature in AYx liquids decreases with increasing yttria content.

Evidence for a high-density amorphous form in indomethacin from Raman scattering investigations

Pressure-induced transformation of $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-IMC [1-($p$-chlorobenzoyl)-5-methoxy-2-methylindole-3-acetic acid] is analyzed from Raman scattering investigations in the low-frequency range of $10--250\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ and the high frequency region between 1550 and $1750\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, where $\mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}$ stretching vibrations are usually observed. At room temperature, by pressurization from atmospheric pressure up to $4\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GPa}$, $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-IMC undergoes a collapse transformation into a high-pressure crystalline form, induced by large rearrangement in the hydrogen-bonded network associated with molecular conformational changes. The Raman spectrum of the high-pressure crystal is similar to that of the $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ form, which is denser than the $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ form and metastable with respect to $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-IMC at atmospheric pressure. Upon further compression a solid-state amorphization is observed via the breakdown of hydrogen bonds. The Raman line shape of the high-pressure amorphous form is different from that of the vitreous state (or thermal glass obtained by quenching the liquid), suggesting the existence of a high-density amorphous state. By release of pressure, this high-density amorphous state transforms into the thermal glass. This transformation can be interpreted as a transformation between a high-density amorphous to a low-density amorphous state, which could be associated with a polyamorphic transformation.

IR spectra of water polyaggregates in a nitrogen cryomatrix

An attempt is undertaken to determine qualitatively, using the cryomatrix isolation method, the state of water cryocondensates in accordance with their cluster composition. To this end IR spectrometry is performed on thin cryovacuum condensate films formed from a mixture of water vapor and nitrogen in a combined condensation regime at substrate temperature T=16K. The water content in nitrogen in most experiments was 5%. The water partial pressure in the course of the experiments and the film thicknesses were determined in a way so that it would be possible to compare them with pure water films with the same reduced thickness grown at the same pressure and temperature. As a result of comparing our IR spectra with the data obtained by other authors it was concluded that water polyaggregates (H2O)n with different composition are formed in the process of combined condensation of water and nitrogen. In the concentration range studied, a large fraction of the polyaggregates consisted of dimers, and higher-order polyaggregates, right up to hexamers, were also present. In addition, the presence of a strong absorption band in the frequency range of librational vibrations is due to the presence of water microcrystallites in the nitrogen matrix. The presumed cyclical character of cluster formation made it possible to consider the clusters to be the nuclei of a crystalline phase. The short-range order parameters in the polyaggregates and microcrystallites formed can largely determine the character of the thermally stimulated polyamorphic and polymorphic transformations in amorphous solid water.