Related papers: Amorphous silica at surfaces and interfaces: simul…
Chemistry occurring at or near the surfaces of aqueous droplets and thin films in the atmosphere influences air quality and climate. Molecular dynamics simulations are becoming increasingly useful for gaining atomic-scale insight into the…
Available simulation methods, suitable to describe solid-solid phase transitions occurring upon increasing of presssure and/or temperature, are based on empirical interatomic potentials: this restriction reduces the predictive power, and…
Understanding, predicting and eventually improving the resistance to fracture of silicate materials is of primary importance to design new glasses that would be tougher, while retaining their transparency. However, the atomic mechanism of…
We present a multi-scale computational framework suitable for designing solid lubricant interfaces fully in silico. The approach is based on stochastic thermodynamics founded on the classical thermally activated two-dimensional…
The static friction between crystalline surfaces separated by a molecularly thin layer of adsorbed molecules is calculated using molecular dynamics simulations. These molecules naturally lead to a finite static friction that is consistent…
We have investigated the response of amorphous silicon (a-Si), in particular crystallization, to external mechanical shear deformations using classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and the empirical Environment Dependent Inter-atomic…
The crystal-melt interfaces of a binary hard-sphere fluid mixture in coexistence with a single-component hard-sphere crystal is investigated using molecular-dynamics simulation. In the system under study, the fluid phase consists of a…
We present new atomistic models of amorphous silicon (a-Si) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) surfaces. The a-Si model included 4096 atoms and was obtained using local orbital density functional theory. By analyzing a slab model…
The oxygen and silicon dynamics in silica is compared via computer simulations. In agreement with experimental data and previous simulations a decoupling of oxygen and silicon dynamics is observed upon cooling. The origin of this decoupling…
Nanoparticles with different surface morphologies that straddle the interface between two immiscible liquids are studied via molecular dynamics simulations. The methodology employed allows us to compute the interfacial free energy at…
Localized basis ab initio molecular dynamics simulation within the density functional framework has been used to generate realistic configurations of amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Our approach consists of constructing a set of smart…
Atom specific valence electronic structures at interface are elucidated successfully using soft x-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy. In order to demonstrate the versatility of this method, we investigated SiO2/Si interface as a…
Interfaces govern the unique mechanical response of amorphous multilayers. Here, we examine nanoindentation hardness and deformation behaviour of amorphous-amorphous Ta$_2$O$_5$/SiO$_2$ nanolaminates with bilayer thicknesses ranging from 2…
We present results of molecular dynamics simulations on lithium metasilicate over a broad range of temperatures for which the silicate network is frozen in but the lithium ions can still be equilibrated. The lithium dynamics is studied via…
We use molecular dynamics computer simulations to calculate the frequency dependence of the specific heat of a SiO_2 melt. The ions interact with the BKS potential and the simulations are done in the NVE ensemble. We find that the frequency…
The structural relaxation of amorphous materials is described as arising from the superposition of elementary processes with varying activation energies. We show that it is possible to obtain the kinetic parameters of these processes from…
Characteristic shock effects in silica serve as a key indicator of historical impacts at geological sites. Despite this geological significance, atomistic details of structural transformations under high pressure and shock compression…
By means of molecular dynamics simulations we examine the aging process of a strong glass former, a silica melt modeled by the BKS potential. The system is quenched from a temperature above to one below the critical temperature, and the…
We use classical molecular dynamics simulations to study the dynamics of sodium atoms in amorphous Na$_2$O-4SiO$_2$. We find that the sodium trajectories form a well connected network of pockets and channels. Inside these channels the…
We present an information-based total-energy optimization method to produce nearly defect-free structural models of amorphous silicon. Using geometrical, structural and topological information from disordered tetrahedral networks, we have…