Pressure induced crystallization in amorphous silicon

Abstract

We have investigated the high pressure behavior of amorphous silicon (a-Si) using X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering techniques. Our experiments show that a-Si undergoes a polyamorphous transition from the low density amorphous to the high density amorphous phase, followed by pressure induced crystallization to the primitive hexagonal (ph) phase. On the release path, the sequence of observed phase transitions depends on whether the pressure is reduced slowly or rapidly. Using the results of our first principles calculations, pressure induced preferential crystallization to the ph phase is explained in terms of a thermodynamic model based on phenomenological random nucleation and the growth process.