Electronic energy loss in the collision processes of slow ions with a graphene fragment is investigated by combining ab initio time-dependent density functional theory calculations for electrons with molecular dynamics simulations for ions in real time and real space. We study the electronic energy loss of slow He²⁺, C²⁺, and C⁴⁺ ions penetrating the graphene fragment as a function of the ion velocity, and establish the velocity-proportional energy loss for low-charged ions down to 0.1 a.u. One mechanism clarified in the simulations for electron transfer is polarization capture, which is effective for bare ions at low velocities. The other one is resonance capture, by which the incident ion can capture electrons from the graphene fragment to its electron affinity levels, which have the same, or nearly the same, energy as those of the electron donor levels. The results demonstrate that the nonlinear behavior of energy loss of C⁴⁺ is attributed to the large number of electrons captured by this multi-charged ion during the collision.

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Molecular dynamics simulations are performed using an empirical potential to simulate the collision process of an energetic carbon atom hitting a graphene sheet. According to the different impact locations within the graphene sheet, the incident threshold energies of different defects caused by the collision are determined to be 22 eV for a single vacancy, 36 eV for a divacancy, 60 eV for a Stone-Wales defect, and 65 eV for a hexavacancy. Study of the evolution and stability of the defects formed by these collisions suggests that the single vacancy reconstructs into a pentagon pair and the divacancy transforms into a pentagon-octagon-pentagon configuration. The displacement threshold energy in graphene is investigated by using the dynamical method, and a reasonable value 22.42 eV is clarified by eliminating the heating effect induced by the collision.

We study the lattice and electronic structure of substitutional Al in α-SiO 2 based on the ab initio density functional method. For various charge states and doping concentrations of Al ions, our results show that the strongly localized O 2p derived hole states are created in the energy gap with local magnetic moments, which are predicted to have a ferromagnetic order due to the strong interaction between the electronic holes and the distorted lattice. Our ab initio calculations clarify for the first time that the paramagnetism observed in Al-doped α-SiO 2 originates from p−p ferromagnetic coupling, and the role of Al dopants is to mediate the short-range ferromagnetic coupling between the O ions on which the electronic holes are localized. Our results present an improved scientific understanding of the experimentally observed paramagnetism in Al-doped α-SiO 2 , and pave the way toward the realization of high-temperature ferromagnetism in Al-doped α-SiO 2 in the future experiments.