Sintering, structure, and mechanical properties of nanophase SiC: A molecular-dynamics and neutron scattering study

Structure, mechanical properties, and sintering of nanostructured SiC (n-Si C) are investigated with neutron scattering and molecular-dynamics (MD) tec hniques. Both MD and the experiment indicate the onset of sintering around 1500 K. During sintering, the pores shrink while maintaining their morpholo gy: the fractal dimension is similar to 2 and the surface roughness exponen t is similar to 0.45. Structural analyses reveal that interfacial regions i n n-SiC are disordered with nearly the same number of three- and fourfold c oordinated Si atoms. The elastic moduli scale with the density as similar t o rho(mu), where mu=3.4 +/- 0.1. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S 0003-6951(00)04334-5].