Addressing the discrepancy of finding equilibrium melting point of silicon using MD simulations

We have performed MD simulations to study the equilibrium melting point of silicon using (i) solid-liquid coexistence method (ii) Gibbs free energy technique, and compared our novel results with the previously published results obtained from Monte Carlo (MC) void-nucleated melting method based on the Tersoff-ARK interatomic potential [PRB 72 (2006) 125206]. Considerable discrepancy was observed (~20%) between the former two methods and the MC void-nucleated melting results, leading us to question the applicability of the empirical MC void-nucleated melting method to study a wide range of atomic and molecular systems. A wider impact of the study though is that it highlights the bottleneck of the Tersoff-ARK potential in correctly estimating the melting point of silicon.