Theoretical Study of the Lithium Diffusion in the Crystalline and Amorphous Silicon as well as on its Surface

Abstract

Using the PAW DFT-GGA method and numerical solving of master equation the diffusion rates of lithium atoms inside both crystal and amorphous silicon of LixSi (x= 0..0.5) composition have been calculated for different temperatures. It is shown the diffusion rate for amorphous silicon is ~10 times greater than that for the crystal silicon. For both structures the rate is increased by 1.5-2 orders of magnitude while the lithium concentration is increased up to 0.5 value. This should result in that the LixSi/Si interface will be sharp. This fact has been further confirmed using molecular dynamic calculations based on Angular Dependent Potential (ADP) model. Also binding energies of Li atoms lying on different sites of Si (001) surface as well as the potential barriers for the atom jumps both along the surface and in the subsurface layers have been calculated. The data show the Li atoms move along the surface very easily but their jumps into subsurface layers are very difficult due to the high potential barrier values.