Abstract
We present a detailed account of an atomistic study of three-dimensional lattice trapping barriers to brittle fracture in Si. By means of a prototypical interatomic potential model, we map out the molecular details of the evolution of atomically sharp cracks in the (111) cleavage plane with straight crack fronts along the and directions, respectively. The thermally activated processes of bond rupturing along the crack front are quantitatively characterized using a reaction pathway sampling scheme. The calculated minimum energy paths reveal a mechanism of kink-pair formation and migration in facilitating the crack front advancement. We show that the physical origin of directional anisotropy in cleavage crack propagation can be attributed to a difference in the kink-pair formation energy for different crack orientations. The effects of interatomic potentials are delineated by comparing the Stillinger–Weber model with an environment-dependent model.
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