Solid–liquid interface velocity and diffusivity in laser-melt amorphous silicon

We studied the microscopic kinetics of the amorphous-liquid interface in supercooled laser-melt silicon by means of molecular dynamics computer simulations. The interface velocity was obtained as a function of temperature by direct simulation of the interface motion in an amorphous-liquid model system. The temperature dependence of the kinetic prefactor was extracted from the interface velocity function and compared to the values of self-diffusivity obtained from independent molecular dynamics simulations of bulk amorphous Si. The kinetic prefactor for interfacial diffusion shows a distinctly non-Arrhenius behavior which is attributed to Fulcher–Vogel kinetics in the supercooled liquid.