STRUCTURAL-PROPERTIES OF AMORPHOUS-SILICON NITRIDE

We developed an empirical potential for interactions between Si and N to describe silicon nitride systems using the Tersoff functional form. The fitting parameters were found using a set of ab initio and experi mental results of the crystalline phase. Using this empirical model, w e explored the structural properties of amorphous silicon nitride thro ugh Monte Carlo simulations, and compared them to available experiment al data. The good description of the a-SiNx system for a wide range of nitrogen contents (0 < x < 1.5) shows the reliability of this model.