Effect of heavy boron doping on pressure-induced phase transitions in single-crystal silicon

The influence of applied loads and loading/unloading rates on pressure-induced phase transitions in lightly and heavily boron-doped silicon was systematically investigated. The resultant phases were plotted into two-dimensional maps with applied loads and loading/unloading rates as the coordinate axes. The formation region of the amorphous phase in the heavily boron-doped silicon was found to be much larger than that in the lightly boron-doped one, suggesting that heavy boron doping promotes the amorphization in silicon. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.