About cookies on this site Our websites require some cookies to function properly (required). In addition, other cookies may be used with your consent to analyze site usage, improve the user experience and for advertising. For more information, please review your options. By visiting our website, you agree to our processing of information as described in IBM’sprivacy statement. To provide a smooth navigation, your cookie preferences will be shared across the IBM web domains listed here.
Publication
Philosophical Magazine A: Physics of Condensed Matter, Structure, Defects and Mechanical Properties
Paper
On the stability of vacancy and vacancy clusters in amorphous solids
Abstract
We find vacancies and vacancy clusters in an amorphous solid, comprised of 500 atoms and characterized by a Lennard–Jones potential, to be unstable both under static and dynamic (molecular dynamics) relaxation. The annealing-out of the vacant volume and the associated translational rearrangement of atoms occur at temperatures and times much smaller than for diffusion in a corresponding face–centred–cubic crystal. Vacancy clusters in a random–network mode! characterized by a Keating potential are observed to persist after static relaxation. These clusters and the network collapse to a more dense–packed structure when the bond–bending forces are set equal to zero and more than nearest–neighbour central–force interactions are included. © 1979 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.