Large and realistic models of amorphous silicon

Abstract Amorphous silicon ( a -Si) models are analyzed for structural, electronic and vibrational characteristics. Several models of various sizes have been computationally fabricated for this analysis. It is shown that a recently developed structural modeling algorithm known as force-enhanced atomic refinement (FEAR) provides results in agreement with experimental neutron and X-ray diffraction data while producing a total energy below conventional schemes. We also show that a large model (∼ 500 atoms) and a complete basis is necessary to properly describe vibrational and thermal properties. We compute the density for a -Si, and compare with experimental results.