Flow and relaxation in amorphous systems has been characterized in details using theoretical analysis of the energy landscape. Using the activation-relaxation technique (ART nouveau), we study the evolution of the energy landscape as a function of relaxation for model amorphous silicon described by a modified Stillinger-Weber potential. More specifically, this technique searches for transition states surrounding a local minimum in the energy landscape, identifying pathways that will be followed during relaxation. Extensive search allows us to construct forward and reverse barrier energy distributions of such reconfiguration steps at different stages of relaxation. We find that the two distributions are completely independent of each other: while the reverse barrier distribution is independent of the degree of relaxation, the evolution of the forward energy barrier is directly related to the number of defects. Assembling all this information,  it is possible to account very well for shape of the heat release measured experimentally during the relaxation of a-Si brought to different states of unrelaxation by self-implantation. This demonstrates the usefulness of such numerical method to account for actual measurements.

Houssem Kallel, Université de Montréal, Canada
François Schiettekatte, Université de Montréal, Canada
Normand Mousseau*, Université de Montréal, Canada

*presenting author