Shock wave synthesis of aluminium nitride with rocksalt structure

The high pressure phase of aluminium nitride with rocksalt structure (rs) is a ceramic with high potential and a challenging material to investigate. The rs-AlN was synthesised and recovered by shock wave experiments using the flyer-plate method with multiple reflections at peak pressures between 15 and 43 GPa. Successful syntheses were carried out using AlN nanopowder with ambient pressure wurtzite structure (w-AlN) as starting material. The high pressure modification could, however, not be obtained when starting from submicron w-AlN. The recovery of rs-AlN is sensitive to the synthesis conditions as these influence the reconversion of rs-AlN to w-AlN.