Simulation Size and Concentration Effect

In the past few decades, we have witnessed the increase of size of MD simulations in terms of total atom numbers in the simulations. Starting from around 100 atoms in early MD simulations to several thousand of atoms in common practice during the past decade, today s simulations of oxide glasses with hundreds of thousands or even millions of atoms of ionic systems can be achieved. It is worth noting that millions atom simulations for metals has been achieved much earlier. This was due tothe fact 

Structure is consistently higher than the random distribution in silica glass due to europium ion clustering but the probability is consistently lower than the random distribution in sodium silicate glasses. This is a classic example showing the effect of system size on simulated glass properties. 

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