Liquid-liquid phase transformation in silicon: evidence from first-principles molecular dynamics simulations.

We report results of first principles molecular dynamics simulations that confirm early speculations on the presence of liquid-liquid phase transition in undercooled silicon. However, we find that structural and electronic properties of both low-density liquid (LDL) and high-density liquid (HDL) phases are quite different from those obtained by empirical calculations, the difference being more pronounced for the HDL phase. The discrepancy between quantum and classical simulations is attributed to the inability of empirical potentials to describe changes in chemical bonds induced by density and temperature variations.