Tight-binding molecular dynamics of ceramic nanocrystals using PC-based parallel machines

Evolution of atomic and electronic structures of silicon-carbide (SiC) nanocrystals during sintering is investigated by a tight-binding molecular dynamics (TBMD) method. An O(N) algorithm (the Fermi-operator expansion method) is employed for calculating electronic contributions in the energy and forces. Simulations are performed on our eight-node parallel PC cluster. In a sintering simulation of aligned (no tilt or twist) SiC nanocrystals at T = 1000 K, we find that a neck is formed promptly without formation of defects. Analyses of local electronic density-of-states (DOS) and effective charges reveal that unsaturated bonds exist only in grain surfaces accompanying the gap states. In the case of tilted (<122>) nanocrystals, surface structures formed before sintering affect significantly the grain-boundary formation.