We report here on the observation of dislocation nucleation and glide in silicon
nanoparticles, after phase transformation from diamond cubic to β-tin crystal structure, within
the formed β-tin metallic phase region in atomistic simulations of indentation. The simulation
results provide an explanation of the super-high hardness of silicon nanoparticles measured
in experiments. By comparing the simulation results with experimental measurement of
hardness, we are able to evaluate the performance of two widely used interatomic potential …