Sublimation of silicene and thin silicon films: a view from molecular dynamics simulation

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to analyze how silicene and silicon thin films sublimate, revealing that thinner films sublimate at lower temperatures and that sublimation temperature saturates for films thicker than 16 atomic layers.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the sublimation behavior of silicene and silicon films, highlighting the size-dependent sublimation temperature and the distinct collapse mechanism from graphite and graphene.

Findings

Thinner films sublimate at lower temperatures.

Sublimation temperature saturates at 1725 K for films thicker than 16 layers.

Surface-mediated crystal collapse differs from graphite and graphene.

Abstract

A molecular dynamics simulation of sublimation of silicene and silicon films of different thikness is performed. It is shown that thiner films sublimate at lower temperatures. The sublimation temperature comes to a saturated value of $T=1725$ K at the films thiker than $16$ atomc layers. These results are consistent with the surface mediated collaps of the crystal structure. At the same time this mechanism is different from the crystal structure collapse of graphite and graphene.