Hugoniot (peak states achieved in single shock compression) and longitudinal sound speed measurements were obtained for [100]- and [111]-oriented silver (Ag) single crystals shock compressed to $\sim 170\mathrm{GPa}$. The high pressure Hugoniot response shows no measurable dependence on the crystal orientation and matches the published polycrystalline Ag results, showing that the Ag Hugoniot response is isotropic. In contrast, sound speed measurements up to $\sim 150\mathrm{GPa}$ exhibit significant anisotropy: when compared to polycrystalline Ag results, the sound speeds for the [111] orientation are higher and the sound speeds for the [100] orientation are lower. Above $\sim 150\mathrm{GPa}$, the sound speeds for both crystal orientations converge to the polycrystalline response, suggesting the development of a polycrystalline structure due to the face-centered-cubic (fcc) to body-centered-cubic (bcc) phase transformation determined using x-ray diffraction measurements [S. M. Sharma et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 235701 (2020)]. The single crystal results show that sound speed measurements in the shock compressed state are a sensitive indicator of both elastic anisotropy and microstructural changes due to the solid-solid phase transformations. These findings point to the need to incorporate the role of crystalline anisotropy when modeling the high stress shock compression response of noble metal single crystals.

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• Continuum mechanics
• High-pressure studies
• Microstructure
• Plasticity
• Pressure effects
• Shock waves
• Transition metals
• Hugoniot measurements
• Pressure techniques