Impact Fracture of Crystalline, Ar+-amorphized, and Amorphous Silicon Dioxide

The mechanical fracture of silicon dioxide initiates the mechanoluminescence (ML) lighting due to multiple breakage of interatomic bonds with producing non-bridged oxygen groups of [≡Si–O–]. The detected ML signals consisted of series of pulses, the energy of which is proportional to the number of photons irradiated from the broken bonds. The comparative analysis of the energy distributions in ML series induced by the impact damage of the surface of crystalline and vitreous SiO2 before and after the Ar+-ion implantation was conducted. The interplay between random and correlated accumulation of broken bonds under the impact loading was found and discussed.