Author(s): James R. Kermode, Anna Gleizer, Guy Kovel, Lars Pastewka, Gábor Csányi, Dov Sherman, and Alessandro De Vita
A thermally activated fracture process can occur in silicon without bonds breaking at the crack tip. For such a process cracks can propagate at speeds well below 2000 ms^{-1}, which were previously thought to be ‘forbidden’.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 135501] Published Wed Sep 23, 2015