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Aspects of rapid crack propagation in silicon
Author(s) -
SHERMAN D.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
fatigue and fracture of engineering materials and structures
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.887
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1460-2695
pISSN - 8756-758X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-2695.2006.01054.x
Subject(s) - mesoscopic physics , fracture mechanics , materials science , crack tip opening displacement , cleavage (geology) , brittleness , crack closure , silicon , mechanics , anisotropy , deflection (physics) , atomic units , composite material , fracture (geology) , condensed matter physics , classical mechanics , optics , metallurgy , physics , quantum mechanics
Fracture experiments with silicon specimens in recent years have shown the need for a new approach to the analysis of rapidly propagating cracks in single crystals. Behaviour and phenomena have been revealed that fracture in these materials is rather different from the fracture of both amorphous and polycrystalline materials. We show that continuum mechanics is insufficient for analyzing crack propagation in single crystals since it is unable to consider atomistic‐scale phenomena. Accordingly, we describe basic phenomena associated with rapid crack propagation in silicon : (i) anisotropic velocity‐dependent R‐curve behaviour, as a key phenomenon dictating atomistic scale behaviour, (ii) crack deflection from one cleavage plane to another as a mesoscopic scale phenomenon in single‐crystal fracture, (iii) the Rayleigh surface wave speed as the limiting crack tip velocity is re‐examined, (vi) the lowest crack velocity in brittle crystals is examined, and finally (v) the interaction between crack path and preferred cleavage planes in single crystals is depicted.