Field Evaporation of Grounded Arsenic Doped Silicon Clusters

TL;DR

This study uses density functional theory to analyze how arsenic doping affects the electric field needed to evaporate silicon clusters, providing insights into nano apex stability under high electric fields.

Contribution

It offers a detailed theoretical analysis of how doping concentration and dopant location influence the field evaporation of silicon clusters.

Findings

Higher doping concentrations lower the critical evaporation electric field.

Dopant location closer to the surface reduces the evaporation field.

Binding energy differences explain the variation in evaporation fields.

Abstract

We have investigated field evaporation of grounded arsenic (As) doped silicon (Si) clusters consist of 52 atoms with density functional theory to mimic Si nano structures of hundreds of nanometers long standing on a substrate. Six cluster structures with different As doping concentrations and dopant locations are studied. The critical evaporation electric fields are found to be lower for clusters with higher doping concentrations and doping sites closer to the surface. We attribute the difference to the difference in binding energies corresponding to the different As-doping concentrations and to the doping locations. Our theoretical study could shed light on the stability of nano apexs under high electric field.