Identification of Relaxation and Diffusion Mechanisms in Amorphous Silicon

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Abstract
The dynamics of amorphous silicon at low temperatures can be characterized by a sequence of discrete activated events, through which the topological network is locally reorganized. Using the activation-relaxation technique, we create more than 8000 events, providing an extensive database of relaxation and diffusion mechanisms. The generic properties of these events—size, number of atoms involved, activation energy, etc.—are discussed and found to be compatible with experimental data. We introduce a topological classification of events and apply it to study those events involving only fourfold coordinated atoms. For these, we identify and present in detail three dominant mechanisms.
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