Pressure-Induced Amorphization and a New High Density Amorphous Metallic Phase in Matrix-Free Ge Nanoparticles

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• 作者：Niccolo R. C. Corsini ; Yuanpeng Zhang ; William R. Little ; Ali Karatutlu ; Osman Ersoy ; Peter D. Haynes ; Carla Molteni ; Nicholas D. M. Hine ; Ignacio Hernandez ; Jesus Gonzalez ; Fernando Rodriguez ; Vadim V. Brazhkin ; Andrei Sapelkin
• 刊名：Nano Letters
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：November 11, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：15
• 期：11
• 页码：7334-7340
• 全文大小：475K
• ISSN：1530-6992

文摘

Over the last two decades, it has been demonstrated that size effects have significant consequences for the atomic arrangements and phase behavior of matter under extreme pressure. Furthermore, it has been shown that an understanding of how size affects critical pressure鈥搕emperature conditions provides vital guidance in the search for materials with novel properties. Here, we report on the remarkable behavior of small (under 鈭? nm) matrix-free Ge nanoparticles under hydrostatic compression that is drastically different from both larger nanoparticles and bulk Ge. We discover that the application of pressure drives surface-induced amorphization leading to Ge鈥揋e bond overcompression and eventually to a polyamorphic semiconductor-to-metal transformation. A combination of spectroscopic techniques together with ab initio simulations were employed to reveal the details of the transformation mechanism into a new high density phase鈥攁morphous metallic Ge.