Phase transformation and nanograin refinement of silicon by processing through high-pressure torsion

Si(100) wafers were subjected to severe plastic deformation under a pressure of 24 GPa using high-pressure torsion (HPT). Si wafers were plastically deformed at room temperature. HPT-processed samples were composed of metastable body centered cubic Si-III and rhombohedral Si-XII phases in the initial cubic diamond Si-I. The volume fraction of metastable phases increased with increasing plastic strain. Successive annealing at 873K led to the reverse transformation of metastable phases. A broad photoluminescence peak centered at about 650 nm appears due to the reverse transformation of Si-III/Si-XII nanograins and the reduction of number of defects in Si-I nanograins. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4754574]