Glassy quasithermal distribution of local geometries and defects in quenched amorphous silicon
Journal
Physical review letters
Date Issued
1988
Author(s)
Abstract
Simulations of amorphous silicon formed by quenching of the liquid indicate that a-Si has a Boltzmann-like distribution of local geometries, corresponding to a "glass temperature" of roughly 700 K. The resulting tetrahedral network exhibits native defects, threefold- and fivefold-coordinated atoms, which have mean formation energies of 0.6 and 0.3 eV, respectively, and which are apparently mobile even at fairly low temperatures. These results are obtained by a novel approach to the analysis, and are relatively insensitive to the empirical interatomic potential used in the simulations.
Subjects