Molecular dynamics simulation of silicon nanostructures

A silicon nanowire can be seen as a very small stick taken out of a bulk structure. Recent works show that they can be synthesized experimentally. This work initiates a series of Molecular Dynamics simulation studies of such structures. The first step towards this goal is the choice of the potential best suited to represent the physics of such a system. We have compared the two most popular potentials for bulk silicon: Stillinger-Weber and Tersoff. Our calculations show that the latter potential seem to represent better the reconstruction of the nanowire surface.