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Stability of Si epoxide defects in Si nanowires

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Subtitle:a mixed reactive force field/DFT study
Modeling the oxidation process of silicon nanowires through reactive force field based molecular dynamics simulations suggests that the formation of Si epoxide defects occurs both at the Si/SiOx interface and at the nanowire surface, whereas for flat surfaces, this defect is experimentally observed to occur only at the interface as a result of stress. In this paper, we argue that the increasing curvature stabilizes the defect at the nanowire surface, as suggested by our density functional theory calculations. The latter can have important consequences for the opto-electronic properties of thin silicon nanowires, since the epoxide induces an electronic state within the band gap. Removing the epoxide defect by hydrogenation is expected to be possible but becomes increasingly difficult with a reduction of the diameter of the nanowires.
Journal: Physical chemistry, chemical physics
ISSN: 1463-9076
Volume: 15
Pages: 15091 - 15097
Publication year:2013
Keywords:A1 Journal article
BOF-keylabel:yes
BOF-publication weight:1
CSS-citation score:1
Authors from:Government
Accessibility:Open