Inelastic Response of Diamond to Shock Compression

Recent shock experiments aimed at exploring diamonds response in the sub-melting pressure region have demonstrated significant orientational dependence of the diamond strength. However, the nature and atomic scale mechanisms of inelastic deformations is currently unknown. Extreme-scale molecular dynamics simulations using machine-learning Spectral Neighbor Analysis Potential (SNAP)  have been performed to uncover the nature and atomic scale mechanisms of inelastic deformations of shock-compressed diamond. The systematic exploration of intelastic response included several crystallographic directions and a wide range of shock intensities.