著者

Boero Mauro Oshiyama Atsushi Silvestrelli Pier Luigi Murakami Kouichi

出版者

American Institute of Physics

雑誌

Applied physics letters (ISSN:00036951)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.86, pp.201910, 2005-05

被引用文献数

17

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Recent experiments have shown that pure Si structures in a matrix of SiO2 can be formed by electron excitation techniques, with appealing applications in nanotechnology. Our ab initio simulations provide an insight into the underlying mechanism, showing that electron excitations weaken Si–O bonds in SiO2, dislodge O atoms and allow Si dangling bonds to reconstruct in stable Si–Si structures below the melting temperature. Differences in diffusivity of O (fast) and Si (slow) are shown to play a decisive role in the process.