Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Nitride: Structural and Electronic Properties

We combined empirical and ab initio methods to study structural and electronic properties of amorphous silicon nitride. For such study, we developed an interatomic potential to describe the interactions between silicon, nitrogen, and hydrogen atoms. Using this potential, we performed Monte Carlo simulations in a simulated annealing scheme to study structural properties of amorphous silicon nitride. Then this potential was used to generate relevant structures of a-SiNx:Hy which were input configurations to ab initio calculations. We investigated the electronic and structural role played by hydrogen incorporation in amorphous silicon nitride.