Microscopical Structural Features of Liquid Arsenic Near Melting Point

Arsenic belongs to a group of polyvalent metals that can form quasi-stable structures in their melt at ambient pressure. This feature of the structure is pronounced as a characteristic shoulder in the radial distribution function of atoms and the structure factor. In the present work, liquid arsenic near melt was analyzed at ambient pressure using ab-initio molecular dynamics. The results confirm the existence of short-lived structures formed by bonded pairs of atoms.