Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Amorphous Oxides*

Amorphous oxides has been used as coating material of interferometers for gravitational wave detection. To optimize their performance, efforts have been devoted to determining diffusive behavior of amorphous pure Ta₂O₅ as well as Ta₂O₅ with various dopants by classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Furthermore, empirical pair potentials aiming at reproducing elastic properties of GeO₂ and doped GeO₂ have been constructed. The new potentials are applied to examine the thermodynamic properties of such material. Also, the vibrational density of states and Raman spectra of amorphous oxides have been demonstrated using MD simulation.