Atomistic simulations on the relationship between solid-phase epitaxial recrystallization and self-diffusion in amorphous silicon

Recent experimental results on self-diffusion (SD) in amorphous silicon (a-Si) [J. Kirschbaum et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 225902 (2018)] indicate that the atomic mechanism of this process is akin to that of solid-phase epitaxial recrystallization (SPER). In this work this relationship is investigated by classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using selected interatomic potentials. At the beginning an overview on the status of the present knowledge on SPER and SD is given. Then properties of a-Si are determined for Stillinger-Weber(SW)-type and Tersoff(T)-type potentials. In all cases a good or satisfactory agreement with structural data measured at room temperature is obtained, in particular with the experimental static structure factor. On the other hand, deviations are found for thermal properties. These studies are followed by extraordinarily extensive MD simulations of SPER and SD which reveal that the temperature dependence of those processes can be described by a simple Arrhenius relation. This corresponds to the results of the measurements. However a fully quantitative agreement cannot be found in the case of the interatomic potentials considered. On the other hand, for a given potential the activation enthalpies of both SPER and SD are rather equal. Therefore, the simulated atomic-level processes are obviously very similar. This is consistent with earlier qualitative discussions of results of SPER and SD experiments. The quantitative agreement with measured data for SPER and SD can be improved for certain SW-type potentials if for a-Si an increased value of the three-body parameter is used.