Molecular Dynamics Study of the Structural Modification of Porous Silica from Low-Energy Recoils

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the effects of low-energy recoils on the microscopic structure of porous silica. Exhibiting a logistic growth with the recoil energy, the displacement probability of Si is shown to be smaller than that of O at the same primary knock-on level. Computations of pair distribution functions and bond angle distributions reveal that this material upon irradiation with energies around the displacement thresholds mainly undergoes structural changes in the medium-range order. In the porous network, while the formation of nonbridging oxygen defects tends to induce shorter Si–O bonds than those formed by bridging oxygen atoms, a remarkable increase of inter-tetrahedral bond angles created by multiple recoils can be observed and associated with the rearrangement of ring statistics.