Stretching siloxanes: An ab initio molecular dynamics study

We present an ab initio molecular dynamics study of siloxane elastomers placed under tensile stress for comparison with single molecule AFM experiments. Of particular interest is stress-induced chemical bond breaking in the high force regime, where a description of the molecular electronic structure is essential to determine the rupture mechanism. We predict an ionic mechanism for the bond breaking process with a rupture force of 4.4 nN for an isolated siloxane decamer pulled at a rate of 27.3 m/s and indicate lower values at experimental polymer lengths and pulling rates.