Amorphization-Mediated Si-I to Si-V Phase Transition and Reversible Amorphous-Si-V Phase Memory in Silicon Nanoparticles

An experiment has shown that ~10 nm Si nanoparticles undergo a Si-I (diamond cubic) to Si-V (simple hexagonal) phase transition under compression, in contrast to the Si-I to Si-II (tetragonal) transition observed in bulk silicon. However, the atomistic mechanism underlying this size-dependent transi