Melting Properties of Medium-Sized Silicon Nanoclusters: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Abstract

The structures and melting properties of the medium-sized silicon nanoclusters have been comparatively studied using the molecular dynamics method. Structural and thermodynamic parameters are used to characterize the melting properties of the clusters. The size dependence of the melting temperature of silicon nanoclusters is determined using the computation results. Different from the homogeneous melting of bulk silicon, melting of silicon nanoparticles proceeds over a finite temperature range due to surface effects, which shows the heterogeneous melting of nanoclusters. We found that the melting starts at the cluster surface and progressively shifts into the core region. This study provides a fundamental perspective on the melting behaviors of semiconductor silicon nanoclusters at the atomistic level.