Understanding the fracture behavior of glasses at the atomic scale is of fundamental impor-tance for improving the mechanical properties of these materials. Using an interaction potentialthat has been parametrized via ab initio calculations [1,2], we have carried out molecular dy-namics simulations in order to investigate the influences of system size, sample geometry, andstrain rate on the fracture behavior of sodium silicate glasses. In contrast to earlier simulationstudies on fracture, in which the bulk glass sample has often been put directly under stress, wehave applied here uniaxial tension to a glass sample that has stress-free surfaces, i.e. we adopta setup that is close to the one used in experiments on fracture studies. Our results show thatthe used interatomic potential captures reasonably well the brittle fracture on the nanoscale ofsilica glass and the enhanced ductility when sodium oxide is added to the glass network. Wehave found that below a critical strain rate of around 0.5/ns the stress-strain curve remainsbasically unchanged. By investigating the formation, growth and coalescence of cavities in thestrained glass samples we find that in sodium silicate glasses the formation of cavities is beingmore pronounced than in silica glass. The analysis of atomic energy, local stress and strain, andatomic displacements have confirmed the presence and the development of mechanically weakzones in the glass network, resulting in paths along which the cracks advance.A. Carré, S. Ispas, J. Horbach, and W. Kob, ”Developing empirical potentials from ab initiosimulations: The case of amorphous silica,” Comput. Mater. Sci., vol. 124, pp. 323–334, Nov.2016.S. Sundararaman, L. Huang, S. Ispas, and W. Kob, ”New optimization scheme to obtain inter-action potentials for oxide glasses”, to be sumitted (2017)

The vibrational properties of silica glass under pressure have been intensively studied experimentally during the last four decades, in particular using Raman spectroscopy. However there are few theoretical studies of the evolution of the vibrational properties under pressure.By using a combination of classical and first principles molecular simulations, we have generated a series of structural models for amorphous silica for pressures between 0 and 12 GPa. Further, their vibrational density of states and infrared spectra have been calculated within the density functional theory framework, known to reliably predict these properties, at least at zero pressure.In this talk, we will discuss the evolution of the vibrational features (band positions and peak intensities) of our models under pressure, focusing on their correlation to the structural changes as well as to the variation of their elastic moduli.

We propose a new scheme to parametrize effective pair potentials that can be used to simulate oxideglasses. As input data for the optimization we use the radial distribution functions of the liquid andthe vibrational density of state of the glass, both obtained from ab initio simulations, as well asexperimental data on the pressure and/or composition dependence of the density and the elasticmoduli of the glass [1].For the case of silica we find that this new scheme allows to find potentials that are significantlyaccurate than previous ones even if the functional form is the same, thus demonstrating that evensimple two-body potentials can be superior to more complex three-body potentials. We have testedthe new potential by calculating the pressure dependence of the elastic moduli and find a goodagreement with the corresponding experimental data.For binary alkali (lithium, sodium, potassium) silicate glasses, the new potentials allow to reproducethe composition dependence of both density and elastic moduli. Further, we examine thecapabilities of these potentials for studying ternary compositions containing two alkali oxides, andwe find that they are reliable even if they have been developed for binary compositions.Simplicity of the functional form also makes these potentials computationally more efficient thanpotentials with more complex functional forms, and hence more suitable for simulations involvinglarge length and/or time scales scales.[1] S. Sundararaman, L. Huang, S. Ispas, and W. Kob, ”New optimization scheme to obtaininteraction potentials for oxide glasses”, J. Chem. Phys. 148 194504 (2018)

The vibrational properties of three sodosilicate glasses have been investigated in the framework of Density Functional Theory. The Raman spectra are calculated and the results compare well with the experimental observations. The vibrational analysis confirms the presence of Si-O-Si bending as well as breathing modes of small rings at intermediate frequencies. The Qn Raman-feature at high frequency is decomposed into Q2, Q3, and Q4 vibrational species. Interestingly, the results suggests a large overlap between the three contributions as well as spectral shapes that are not necessarily unimodal nor Gaussian, as frequently assumed in the treatment of the experimental data. Raman scattering of ternary alumino-silicate glasses with alkali and alkaline-earth cations (Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Na,...) has also been performed. In these glasses, vibrational signatures of cations are clearly evidenced at low frequency in the depolarized (VH) spectra. Raman scattering by cations at low-frequency is confirmed by the computational data in the sodo-silicates. In the alumino-silicate glasses the responses associate to different types of motions. The analysis allows separating the contribution arising from network modifier cations to that originating from charge compensator ones.

We propose a new scheme to parametrize effective pair potentials that can be used tosimulate oxide glasses. As input data for the optimization we use the radial distributionfunctions of the liquid and the vibrational density of state of the glass, both obtained fromab initio simulations, as well as experimental data on the pressure and/or composition de-pendence of the density and the elastic moduli of the glass [1].For the case of silica we find that this new scheme allows to find potentials that are signifi-cantly accurate than previous ones even if the functional form is the same, thus demonstratingthat even simple two-body potentials can be superior to more complex three-body poten-tials. We have tested the new potential by calculating the pressure dependence of the elasticmoduli and find a good agreement with the corresponding experimental data.For binary alkali (lithium, sodium, potassium) silicate glasses, the new potentials allowto reproduce the composition dependence of both density and elastic moduli. Further, weexamine the capabilities of these potentials for studying ternary compositions containing twoalkali oxides, and we find that they are reliable even if they have been developed for binarycompositions.Simplicity of the functional form also makes these potentials computationally more efficientthan potentials with more complex functional forms, and hence more suitable for simulationsinvolving large length and/or time scales scales.S. Sundararaman, L. Huang, S. Ispas, and W. Kob, ”New optimization scheme to obtaininteraction potentials for oxide glasses”, submitted (2018)

We propose a new scheme to parameterize effective potentials that can be used to simulate atomic systems such as oxide glasses. As input data for the optimization, we use the radial distribution functions of the liquid and the vibrational density of state of the glass, both obtained from ab initio simulations, as well as experimental data on the pressure dependence of the density of the glass. For the case of silica, we find that this new scheme facilitates finding pair potentials that are significantly more accurate than the previous ones even if the functional form is the same, thus demonstrating that even simple two-body potentials can be superior to more complex three-body potentials. We have tested the new potential by calculating the pressure dependence of the elastic moduli and found a good agreement with the corresponding experimental data.

We have carried out combined classical and ab initio molecular dynamics (MD)simulations in order to investigate the structural and vibrational properties of severalborosilicate glasses. We have considered rather simple ternary compositions withvarying SiO 2 , B 2 O 3 or Na 2 O concentrations, or more complex compositionscontaining equally CaO, Al 2 O 3 or MgO. The ab initio calculations have been carriedout within the density functional theory framework as implemented in the VASPcode. The classical MD simulations were carried out using different effective pairpotentials.We have studied the local structure of the various structural units, and inparticular we have focused on the structures around the boron atoms and how theseare embedded into the network. We have investigated how the Na atoms aredistributed around the [3] B triangles and [4] B tetrahedra. Furthermore, we have foundthat the Na distribution associated to a BO 4 tetrahedron is different from thatcorresponding to a SiO 4 tetrahedron in that the former gives rise to a distribution thatis significantly more structured.The vibrational properties have been equally studied within the ab initio approach,and we have identified the contributions of the various species as well as those ofthe local structural units. We have also calculated the dielectric function ε(ω) as wellas the absorption spectra. The latter are in good quantitative agreement withexperimental data. The results obtained in this work confirm that the atomisticsimulations, in particular the ab initio ones, give access to a better understanding ofcomplex borosilicate glasses since their structural and vibrational properties can beextracted with a good accuracy and compare very well to experimental data.