F. Cleri et al., CORRELATION BETWEEN ATOMIC-STRUCTURE AND LOCALIZED GAP STATES IN SILICON GRAIN-BOUNDARIES, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 57(11), 1998, pp. 6247-6250
Tight-binding molecular-dynamics simulations of a typical high-energy
grain boundary in silicon show that its equilibrium atomic structure i
s similar to that of bulk amorphous silicon and contains coordination
defects. The corresponding electronic structure is also amorphouslike,
displaying gap states mainly localized around the coordination defect
s, where large changes in the bond-hybridization character are observe
d. It is proposed that such coordination defects in disordered high-en
ergy grain boundaries are responsible for the experimentally observed
gap states in polycrystalline Si.